


The Fortunate Favourite

by Amoris



Series: Archer's Paradox: Shadowmarked [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance, Thieves Guild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 59,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoris/pseuds/Amoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Brynjolf met Archer, she breezed into his city in search of information, the Thalmor on her heels, and when she disappeared, she left nothing but questions in her wake. Now, the winter wind brings her back to him, full of secrets and seeking the sanctuary only he can provide. This time, his services will cost her more than answers - and perhaps, this time, it is more than she is willing to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dire Straits

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my story "Borrowed Trouble" and the second(ish) part of my Archer's Paradox series. I am hoping I did a sufficient job of recapping in this chapter so that going back isn't required - or possibly interested you enough to go give it a read.

The Goldenglow job had been simple.

 _Dangerous_ , but simple. And there was a lot riding on the outcome. The job had been – and still remained – _vital_ to the guild's future fortune and success. That was why he'd entrusted it to Vex. She was careful, and she was _good_. She'd promised to get the job done, and Brynjolf had all but put the worry out of his mind.

Vex would see it finished.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so eager. Maybe he shouldn't have sent her out there alone. Maybe he shouldn't have put so much faith into one person – gods above knew he should have learned that lesson by now. He'd always been a fast learner, but he could also be the most stubborn of pupils and it was always those around him who paid the price.

Another lesson yet unlearned.

Brynjolf had never expected it would spiral down to this. In the twenty years he'd run with the Riften thieves guild, he had seen his fair share of jobs gone wrong. Even his own luck had turned sour time and again. As was most often the case, there was no explaining it. Things just went south sometimes. It was the work, a part of the life. They were _thieves_ , after all, grifters and outlaws who tempted fate, and were blessed or cursed by its favour.

Partners got pinched, lookouts got lazy, desperate people talked. Sure, it was ugly and most times avoidable, but it happened _._

But _this_ –

She was soaked to the bone, his little Vex, and her hair was strung with reeds. He had scarcely recognized her when he'd walked down the steps, huddled shivering as she was near the fire that was kept burning beneath the brewing vats. The cellar of the meadery was dark but for those licking flames, casting a ghoulish pall on everything their light touched. Vex, washed of colour, was little more than a ghost.

" _Shor's bloody bones,"_ he swore quietly as he knelt down next to her. Delicately, he reached up to brush away the bloody hair matted to her forehead. The gash there was impressive.

"Don't you d-dare start coddling me," she hissed, batting him away. "It's nothing, I'm fine."

But it wasn't nothing. She wasn't fine.

He stood and stepped back. He turned to Maul, lingering in the shadows.

"Thank you for the help, lad."

Maul shrugged his shoulders and kept his arms folded tight over his chest. "She's just lucky it was me who found her and not one of the guards," he said.

Brynjolf silently agreed with him. He was going to need more information soon, he needed to know what had gone wrong, but in that moment, Brynjolf was simply thankful he would have the chance to hear the story from Vex's own lips. He wouldn't press her about it just then. Perhaps after she stopped shaking in her boots, but before she dried out and he took her back to the cistern.

There was time yet.

At that moment, however, he had an edgy mercenary standing before him, one who would go straight to Maven when he left the boilery, and there were a few things Brynjolf needed to make perfectly clear before he let that happen.

He looked to Vex slumping in her chair. He was sharply reminded of the return of Etienne Rarnis and the chaos he'd dragged in with him when he'd escaped the Thalmor a few months past.

This wasn't the cloak-and-dagger Dominion, though. This was guild business. This was _Vex_.

And he was the one who had sent her in.

"Will you be all right while I –"

She cut him off. "I will kill you if you talk to me like that one more time. Don't make me kill you, Bryn."

"Such a sweetheart you are, lass," he said with a smile, and left her alone. He slipped into the shadows and out of her line of sight – not that he was entirely certain she watched him go. She seemed drawn inward, and just by the look of her, he couldn't say he blamed her.

Maul hadn't moved, keeping his distance from Vex, but in his eyes Brynjolf could read impatience.

"Found her in the lake, out past the fishery," said Maul, offering his side of things without having been asked. The gentle rattle of the simmering vats all but blocked out their conversation. It was a good hiding place. "She was holding on to the collapsed pier, couldn't pull herself up out of the water."

"And no one else saw you?"

Maul shrugged his massive shoulders. "Can't be too sure. There's a pair of guards out on patrol, but they're sticking pretty close to the gate tonight."

Brynjolf smirked. He knew very well that what kept those guards close to the gate on that night of all nights was the weight of Maven's gold in their pockets, but if Maven had decided that such information did not concern the mercenary, Brynjolf was not about to go against her. And so he shook his head instead, as if he found the whole thing lamentable but entirely beyond his control.

Vex's own poor luck.

"Did she say anything to you?"

"Grieved my maiden's ear with all her cussing."

Brynjolf laughed. "Aye, I don't doubt that, but did she say what happened?"

"Not a word. That's why I came for you."

"I'm glad you did. Let me have until morning before you go to Maven. Then she can having something to chew on at breakfast. I need a chance to give Mercer the heads up, eh?"

"Sure, Bryn."

He clapped the mercenary on the shoulder. "I'm in your debt, friend," he said. These were not words he used lightly, if at all – _ever –_ but it was a debt he was more than willing to incur on Vex's behalf. There was no denying he had a soft spot for the girl, though it was beyond him why she allowed it, and he doubted he could have borne the guilt if she'd been caught or killed because he sent her in unprepared.

He leaned back and craned his neck to see past the towering vat to take in the sight of Vex, shivering beneath a blanket and so reminiscent of Rarnis that he had to look away. After all, one look at her was all he really needed to know that she was hurt and shaken and angry, that nothing had gone according to plan.

"Thank you again," he said to Maul, and nodded toward the door.

As he watched the mercenary lumber up the stairs, he let loose a sigh and ran his hands slowly through his hair, but it was only when he heard the doors to the docks creak shut that he stepped out of his shadowy little corner. He found a chair and placed it in front of Vex. He sat down and put his elbows to his knees, leaning toward her.

"Tell me what happened, lass."

His little Vex was trembling, but at the sound of his voice she tensed, tried to stop it, to put an end to such weakness as human frailty and the limitations of her own body. Her leg jounced forcefully with the effort. He'd never seen her more agitated, more _vexed_ than she was in that moment. Mara's mercy, he hoped never to again.

She sniffed. "Maven's got a big problem on her hands, Bryn. _We've_ got a big problem."

"Aye, I can see that much. I was looking for a bit more elaboration."

"Aringoth has gone and hired mercenaries to protect the estate," she said, wincing as she shifted. "There's not a city guardsman on the whole island."

"How's that, then?" Brynjolf asked, scarcely believing it. "Who paid to keep that quiet?"

"I thought you were the one with all the information."

Brynjolf snorted. "A fair point."

"They caught me just inside the house," she said, pulling a face as if she found it distasteful, which he supposed it was. A thief like her, sleek and professional, caught by some blundering mercenary hired off the roadside. It was a damn shame. "They were patrolling the halls, Bryn. Expecting trouble."

"Aringoth was waiting for us to make a move," he said, shaking his head. "And what about you?"

Vex scoffed. "What about me?"

"Looks like you've been in quite the tangle." He raised an eyebrow at her, and she had the decency to look contrite, even if just for a moment. "If something's happened –"

"Something _has_ happened, Brynjolf," she said gravely. "Aringoth is locking down, locking us _out_. If we lose Goldenglow –"

He stared at her hard, and spoke in a tone that would brook no argument. "We won't lose Goldenglow. Have a little faith, lass. We will handle this, and Maven will have nothing to fret over." Soft spot or not, she needed to be reminded that such concerns were above her pay grade.

Vex looked sceptical. "What about Mercer?"

"Let me deal with Mercer. Just rest awhile. We'll head back to the Flagon soon."

He left her there in the smoky cellar of the meadery to wallow in her failure. He knew her well enough to leave her to it for a little while. He also knew that once she'd composed herself, she'd want to head straight back to the cistern. If he had to guess, he would say that she had no intention of allowing him to make excuses for her in front of the guild master.

It would infuriate Mercer. Bless her and that mouth of hers. And once Mercer was storming and stewing, once he'd taken to stalking the length behind his desk until he wore a furrow right into the stone, Brynjolf would swoop in with an easy smile, ready as ever with a risky solution to save their hides once more.

Now all he needed to do was find that solution.

The night's bitter cold hit him hard as he stepped outside. The wind was all frozen fingers, sneaking in beneath his collar and up his sleeves to steal all his warmth away. He braced himself against that thieving wind as he walked briskly past the fishery, down the pier to where a cog was moored. The pier was a mess of crates and rope and netting here, and would hide him well enough while he tried his best to collect his thoughts.

A deep shiver went through him as the cold settled properly in his bones. He did not envy Vex her swim, and the thought only served to fuel his guilt more. He pulled his hood up to guard against the wind, listening as it drove the water into white-capped waves to break against the wooden pilings beneath his boots. He tried to breathe a little deeper, to fill himself with winter's stark, empty peace. Lulled for a moment by the wind and the water, he watched as the lights of Goldenglow estate burned in the darkness at the centre of the lake.

In truth, Brynjolf was at a loss. In a single night, the situation with Goldenglow had gone from bad to worse, and unless the problem was remedied quickly, he had not the faintest idea how the guild would manage to redeem itself in Maven's eyes. Never mind for the moment the gold that all her lucrative and merciless business endeavours brought them. Maven's good opinion was crucial to the guild's very survival.

In a few days, the whole of the city would know that Aringoth had dismissed the city guard, who were notoriously the most effective of Maven's eyes and ears. Every shopkeeper and business owner in the hold would know that the glorified beekeeper had found some way to free himself from the iron grip of the Black-Briar family.

Every man, woman, and child in the city would know that the guild had failed to maintain the balance.

The very thought of the state of their reputation made Brynjolf snort, sending up a cloud of fog as the sudden burst of breath met the cold night.

It was a tenuous thing, their hold on the city. They were barely clinging to a purchase long ago eked out by the influence of the Black-Briar family. Maven's drive for dominance in all things had only increased their fortunes – but that golden time was twenty years gone now, and her confidence in them dwindled by the day. It was only the sure knowledge that Maven's need for the guild would never die that allowed Brynjolf to sleep at night, the dagger beneath his pillow notwithstanding.

What helped Mercer, the gods only knew.

Something in the distant dark drew his eye – _there_ , again –

A burst of dragonfire rose high over the ruins in mountains to the northwest. It came once more, a brilliant jet of orange and yellow, before the sleek silhouette of the beast curved against the star-filled sky and disappeared into the depths of the night – blessedly away from the city.

Another shiver came over Brynjolf, one that had naught to do with the winter's chill. The dragons. The war. The guild's problems shrank by comparison, but these were matters that were close to his heart, and could not be banished in a simple, single moment of clarity.

Outside the walls of Riften, the world around him was shifting, shaking down to its foundations and being forged anew by great men and strange events, and though Mercer had ordered him to carry on with business as usual, even Brynjolf could not ignore just how much his little organization had been affected by the winds of change sweeping across Skyrim.

Ulfric's cause was gaining momentum; it was only a few weeks past that he'd marched his Stormcloaks to the gates of Whiterun. He'd taken the city in a matter of hours, and all those proud stone walls had stood for nothing.

It was said that he fought with a dragon at his side, a loyal pet he sent to do his bidding – it was also said that he had taken the dragon to his bed, that it would rule beside him as his queen and that all of Skyrim would burn before his lust for power and his dragon queen was sated.

Falkreath had been the next to fall, scarce a fortnight later, and with it, the Stormcloaks controlled all roads in and out of Cyrodiil. It increased the pressure upon the Imperials to retake Riften for the empire, putting their fair lady in the line of fire. Even though Mercer tried to keep the guild neutral to one side or another, it was undeniable that while a little competition was profitable, blood in the streets was not.

After all, the guild had been given a taste of the attentions of the Dominion, the focus of the war, and none among them was eager to repeat the experience.

How fate had intervened to bring that storm down on their heads, Brynjolf still didn't know. He wasn't certain if he'd ever find the answer.

Maven had yet to truly forgive them for their unforeseen involvement in the Dominion's affairs. Close to two months had passed since Etienne Rarnis had returned to the fold, the Thalmor on his heels. It was an incident that was rarely spoken of in the Flagon, though Brynjolf had heard the guards telling the tale amongst themselves while on patrol, that bloody, chaotic night in the Ratway when a light had been shone to reveal the hidden strings and rearrange the shadows.

And then there had been the girl. Archer, she'd named herself freely, while her eyes had betrayed her lie. _Madeline_ , she'd whispered into his embrace, her voice giving away the vulnerability of the truth.

He still remembered her wildfire eyes, and the taste of her like a dagger, blood and steel upon his lips.

Gone, like candle smoke. Just a lingering memory that never had its moment to _be_ before it was already gone.

Brynjolf had spent more of his own gold than he cared to admit using guild resources trying to track her down, but she and the old man she'd dragged out of Riften had disappeared into thin air the second they'd left the city. They could very well have crossed the border out of Skyrim, gone to Morrowind or Hammerfell, far beyond his contacts and his reach.

Despite what Mercer had said to convince the others, Brynjolf did not believe for even a moment that the Thalmor had caught up with her. She was a lucky one, he'd felt that in his gut the very instant he'd laid eyes on her. He'd tried to capture a little of that for himself and the guild, to no avail.

His own poor luck, that.

A strong gust of wind pulled at his hood, stealing his breath and interrupting his thoughts, as if reprimanding him for his pining. With a sigh, he shook off the cold and with a last dragon-seeking glance, turned away from the mountains and the lake, and hurried up the pier back to the meadery.

Dawn was not long off, and he needed to get Vex back to the cistern.

She was waiting for him just inside at the top of the cellar stairs, arms crossed, that signature dour frown securely in place.

"How's that cold for you?" she asked, quite cheeky for a half-drowned cat. Though she was still pale as a winter peach, she'd cleaned herself up a bit and had pulled most of the reeds from her hair. More like herself, a sight to make him smile.

"It's a little too chill for my blood," he teased, knowing he could handle the cold better than most in the guild.

"Are you done making me wait?"

He chuckled, and gestured up the stairs. "Aye, that I am. Let's go – oh, and lass? Tread quietly now. We are still trespassing after all. Wouldn't want to bring the guard down on our heads."

Vex rolled her eyes at him, and gave him a little shove. "I wouldn't dare. It would ruin the lovely evening we're having. You always take me to the nicest places, Bryn."

He smirked at her back as she slipped past him up the stairs.

 _It's a charmed life we lead, little one,_ he thought, but he could not find his smile again nor convince himself the words any truer than the lie they really were. Some days he managed, but not tonight.

The guards patrolling the streets and the plaza paid them little mind, though he kept Vex close, and she gave a few drunken stumbles for full effect. It was a quiet night, cold and full of stars. For all the dire news brought in on the wind of late, dragons and vampires and Stormcloaks, Riften had seen little of such troubles. Since the incident with the the girl and the Thalmor down in the warrens, life in his cozy little corner of Skyrim had been dull – and, he was sorry to say, downright _boring._

That was, at the very least, until Maul had slipped unnoticed into the cistern mere hours before to whisper in his ear that Vex was in a bad way and that he should come at once.

Brynjolf had never been one to believe in signs from the gods. He was not a devout man, but neither was he a faithless one. Aside from the obligatory pleas in times of crisis – of which themselves were few and far between – Brynjolf tended to leave the gods alone as they had chosen to leave him all those years ago.

It was a mutually beneficial agreement, the best there was.

But the dragonfire on the mountainside had him thinking, and that in turn became a hollowed pull somewhere inside him, less guesswork and more gut instinct, and by the time he and Vex had ducked into the deep shadows of the temple courtyard, he was all but certain that the troubles were just beginning again.

Something was coming, as _something_ always did when the guild was unprepared, only this time – perhaps his eyes had been open to see the sign.

Vex knocked his arm away when they entered the mausoleum. She pressed the button with the toe of her boot, leaving a wet imprint in the frost. The stone plate slid smoothly out of the way, and the grate to the cistern beckoned, torchlight gleaming faintly from below.

"Can we get this over with now?" she asked.

"After you, lass," he said, watching as she descended sulkily into the darkness. He gave one last look to the night sky and its scattered stars, but the hulking mountains over the city were empty and still, and there was nothing to see but shadows.


	2. A Mother's Blessing

Ever since she was a very little girl, her _maman_ had told her that she was her father's child without question, a true daughter of Skyrim with ice and stone in her veins.

This was, of course, no compliment. It always came muttered with a sigh of exasperation over every bruise and blister, over each lost trifle and torn dress, but ever with a warmth and softness in her eyes as she gazed down at the wild and tempestuous child the gods had blessed her with.

It was what Madeline remembered most about her _maman_ , now almost three years since her passing, her shameful mess of a childhood and those secret smiles meant only for her. She remembered, as well, how those smiles had begun to fade as the years had passed and she grew into a young woman, as the blisters became callouses and the dresses went unworn, as her studies languished and her bold tongue outgrew her common sense.

She had grown still since then. She had learned much – most of all to be mindful of her mouth, especially considering all the trouble it had gotten her into since she'd come home to Skyrim. Because she _was_ home, she told herself again, no matter how many times it had almost gotten her killed. She doubted Adeleira Villiers would be very proud of her daughter, Arkay guide her, but –

But Madeline didn't know what else to do. She just wanted to be done running.

The world, for its part, had seemed to begrudgingly settle alongside her into this uneasy compromise. The road through the Rift had been quiet, as if the cold had chased all the travellers back to their hearths and the animals to their dens, and she now found herself surrounded by nothing but winter's stillness. She'd seen little and less trouble since the Reach, since Rorikstead and this precarious truce she'd brokered with the gods, and for that she was grateful. Her body had mostly recovered, but she could not say the same for her heart or her peace of mind.

The sky was open and clear that day, but she stayed close to the road, not daring to venture into the trees where the snowdrifts might run deeper and trolls were known to lurk. She did not know this road as well as she knew others that crisscrossed from one hold to the next, but she was no fool to think for even a moment that the wending road with its illusive calm was safe. She kept her bow at the ready, and her quiver was full enough to give her some semblance of peace.

Her bravery might have fled from her somewhere along the way, but she still had her resolve, that stubborn streak her _maman_ had lamented so, and to it she clung as she travelled across the icy countryside. Ivarstead was behind her and she was determined to make Riften before nightfall.

Her legs ached. She knew she was pushing herself too hard. The disaster and misfortune of the Reach was still not so very far behind her; too much of her blood had soaked into its stony soil and still all these mornings later she woke as fatigued as when she'd closed her eyes. All Jouane had done to save her life and nurse her back to health felt as if it were unravelling inside of her as she pressed on toward Riften.

 _You must rest_ , the old healer had implored when she refused to stay, poor Erik standing behind him, his young face lined with worry, and he'd said –

She tried to shake the thought from her head, but it was a foolish hope. Their faces and their dark and gentle words trailed after her like an echo of voices on the wind.

At midday, she stopped on the bank of the Treva River. She sat on a fallen log and ate a meagre meal, trying to give herself the rest she knew she needed. A deer ambled along the opposite shore, sleek and graceful, its head turning to watch the ice floes drift downstream to Lake Honrich. When it saw her, it bolted off into the trees.

All the while, her bow remained propped at her side where she'd left it. She sighed, thinking of how hungry she was and how little gold there was in her coinpurse, but she thought, too, on the time she could not spare to salvage and scrape the hide. She doubted her little dagger would make a very good job of it at any rate. Most of her hunting gear, her tools and her knives, had been left behind at Hjerim. They would gather dust there for an eternity before she ever returned for them.

That dreadful lonely house would be a fitting tomb for the life she'd tried to keep.

Again she sighed. Her shoulders sagged and would not square no matter the effort she put into it – which, to be honest, was not much to begin with. She was just so godsdamned _tired_.

She was a long time in convincing herself to stand. Her legs just did not want to bear her weight. She thought that if perhaps she could leave a piece of herself behind, if she could just _stay_ on that riverbank somehow, watching the pristine birch forest with its blanket of white and the floes bobbing along in the current, she might _somehow_ find the rest she needed.

And if the Thalmor came along, or if Ulfric's men caught up with her, or if the World Eater himself descended in a fury of blood and fire, then by the gods, she might somehow find the courage to face it.

But instead –

Instead she ran. Toward Riften and a promise made by a thief in the heat of intrigue. He'd probably forgotten it just as quickly.

She had no choice but to hope otherwise. There was nowhere else to go from here.

 

 

She was close to the city when she came across a brutish mercenary leaning against a tree. He seemed to be guarding a cobbled lane that led over a pair of bridges to an island at the centre of the lake. The estate on the island was impressive, almost picturesque, something she hadn't noticed on her first visit to Riften, though she'd come and gone along this very road. Preoccupied, she supposed.

The mercenary glared at her. "Riften's that way, keep moving."

Archer didn't move. "I was just looking. What is this place?"

"Not in the habit of telling a woman twice," the mercenary laughed, but there was no one else there to laugh with him at his little quip. When she still didn't move, he straightened and pulled the axe from his belt, showing her the wicked glint along the blade in the fading sunlight.

She put up her hands, in no mood – or condition – to fight. "Divines smile on you," she said, rolling her eyes as she turned and walked away.

She overtook a fisherman farther down the road, his pole over his shoulder. The basket he carried in the opposite hand was empty, accounting for the pace at which he dejectedly trudged along.

"Boss is going to have my hide," he said woefully as she passed by him. "Those mercenaries chased me off."

Archer said nothing, only offered up an encouraging smile over her shoulder as she hurried toward the city.

The sun was setting at her back as she reached the south gate, a haze of fiery orange and deepest rose. She kept her hood up to hide her hair and shadow her eyes. Her face marked her Breton and the pale green robe she wore beneath her cloak gave the impression of an initiate mageling, untrained, unassuming, non-threatening.

The guard at the gate let her pass with nothing more than a nod of the head, yawning and muttering some halfhearted warning about respecting the law.

She smiled to herself beneath her hood as she pulled the heavy gate open just wide enough to slip through. She'd arrived just before the changing of the next shift, and while she didn't know much about Riften, one thing that seemed painfully clear was that word had a way of travelling fast here, whether you wanted it to or not.

This is what Archer remembered about Riften:

The scent of stagnant water, the creak of bloated wood; moss so soft and think beneath her boots that she left wet footprints across the cobblestones as she walked; that the guards were too permissive and the beggars too bold; the echoing empty promises of a confidence man with the most agreeable voice she'd ever heard; the ring of the blacksmith's hammer across the crowded market; the mist on the water, the cool depths of the shadows, the cry of children in the shade of the keep.

She had never known quite what to _make_ of Riften, her one visit to the city now just a blur of faces and names and _him_ in her memory, spotted with blood and smelling of rot and misery. Delphine. Brynjolf. Esbern. All of it left far behind, yet here she was, circling back to a corpse long cold, hoping that perhaps its pockets had not been picked clean.

She was not so foolish as to think she could seek him out, not with the mess she'd made the last time she'd shown up on his doorstep.

No, she had to wait for him to come to her. Just as before.

As she made her way to the inn, she came to the conclusion that winter suited Riften well, softening the slow decay and neglect with a cloak of ice and snow. The air seemed cleaner, fresher, as if some of the misleading beauty of the Rift had finally crept into the city itself. She stayed on the far side of the canal to avoid the market proper. The little plaza was a crowded place this time of day, but even from a distance she could see that two of the stalls stood empty and her thief was not there.

She paused then, watching the market with a heavy hand on the frosty wooden rail, the waters of the canal gently lapping against the pilings far below her. For one terrible moment, she found herself rethinking her entire plan of attack and a deep chill settled over her. It was not that she hadn't considered the fact that he might refuse her, but it seemed she had forgotten to take into account that she might not have the opportunity to approach him at all.

She shivered. She knew there was nothing to do but wait now.

The inn was called the Bee and Barb, and it was kept by a fierce, sharp-tongued Argonian woman named Keerava who looked as likely to breathe fire as any dragon Archer had ever met. She was kindly enough, though, when she realized she had a paying customer on her hands, and the inn was clean and warm. Archer paid her for a room and supper, and allowed herself to be shown upstairs.

She'd done this song and dance before, of course, not knowing the first time what end it would lead to. While she'd once known an innkeeper to be more than she appeared, Keerava held no love for the Thieves Guild and was _exactly_ as she appeared. Archer could take comfort in that.

Comfort enough to sleep a few hours, anyway.

Sleep, however, could not be further from her mind then. She ate quickly because she was famished, and it was only once she was done that she shrugged off her cloak and hood and hung them on a peg. She stripped herself of her robe and breeches, leaving them to air by the glowing brazier before she went about washing the sweat and blood from her person, trying very, very hard not to think on how long it had been since she'd properly scrubbed the dirt from beneath her nails.

The soft blue dress and cloth slippers still carried the chill of the day's travel when she dug them out of her rucksack. She shivered as she dressed and was not slow in fastening her cloak about her shoulders again. She stood for a long time after warming herself at the brazier, lost to thought.

When she finally emerged from her room, it was long past supper and the great hall below had grown crowded with locals seeking out meal and mead – along with their daily dose of news and rumour, of course. She might very well have been invisible as she descended the stairs. It was nothing for her to pull her hood up over her still wet hair and linger for a moment in the long shadows that clung to the edge of the room like cobwebs. More than a dozen men and women filled the hall with shouts and smoke and laughter, all trying to speak over one another, to be heard above all the rest.

But she did not see her thief with the casual glance, the man in the business of deals.

She remembered the first time she had met Brynjolf, soft-spoken and ruggedly handsome, leaning against the wall of the inn and watching the crowd as if he had all the right in the world to do everything at his own leisure. He'd made her immediately uneasy with those striking green eyes and the devilish grin that had promised gold and trouble.

Delphine was the one who had given her his name and Archer had still trusted her then, blindly and without question.

When it was all over, Brynjolf had asked her to stay, offered her a place with his guild when he scarcely knew anything about her at all – more the fool was he, and luckier than he knew not to be dragged into the trouble that followed her like a plague. But it had tugged at her then, that offer of his, and it continued to haunt her all this time later, after Delphine, after Esbern –

After Whiterun.

It was not long after that cheering thought that the raucous clamour of the inn began to get to her, but even after she'd slipped out the door and escaped into the bitter cold night the noise in her head did not die. A thousand stars burned in the black sky over her head, all was quiet and still but for the chaos inside her still raging, the clash of steel and the shouts for glory and blood, for Talos, the Empire...

She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill and mark her cheeks with cowardice. She wanted no brand for the world to see, silly girl in a threadbare cloak, little lamb all by her lonesome. She took a deep, steadying breath that seared her lungs with cold, over and again until her throat unknotted and her heart quit its painful leaping.

She didn't know how long she stood there leaning against the wall of the Bee and Barb trying to keep herself from coming undone, but after some time a guard approached, carrying with him a torch and a warming circle of light. He peered curiously at her through the slits in his helm, and when he spoke, it was with the softest and hollowest of echoes.

"You should not be out here, miss. These streets are not safe after dark. Go back inside."

"Tell me where the streets _are_ safe at night," she said with sad smile. "I think I would like to go there."

"As would I," the guard said, "but that changes nothing here. Back inside with you."

"There is nothing in there for me," she said, cringing at the very thought of the noise and the ruin it had made of her calm. She sighed, realizing the guard was not going to relent. "If you insist I get off your streets, then I will go to the temple."

"Come along then," said the guard, "I will see you there safely."

Beneath her hood, Archer rolled her eyes – but she went along just the same, following the torch along the boardwalk and across the canal to the temple courtyard. At the bottom of the steps, the guard left her with his well wishes and went about his patrol. She hurried up to the door, eager now to get out of the cold.

The interior of the temple was dimly lit, the flicking glow of the dying braziers casting long shadows across the floor. The boards beneath her feet creaked as she moved away from the door. It was warm in the temple, warmer than the inn had been, and she pulled her hood away from her face lest she be stifled by the smoke and the drifting aroma of burning mountain flowers.

She had caught a priest dozing in his chair, but he leapt to his feet upon waking to the sight of her standing shivering on the threshold. A Nord with plaits in his hair, he smiled sleepily at her.

"Welcome, traveller," he said. "Mara's light shine upon you this cold, dark night."

"The light of your fires will serve just as well," said Archer with a tight smile.

"If you seek the priest's blessing, you must wait until morning."

She shook her head. "I only seek a quiet place. May I sit?"

"All are welcome," said the acolyte, and gestured to the small collection of pews before the altar. Just as the guard had, he left her alone.

The statue wept its ethereal tears for her as she sat down. The supplication of the goddess did nothing to impress Archer. She had never known any mother but her own, never known any divine but Kynareth in all her wild grace. She knew wind, she knew _change._ Life had shown her little of benevolent forgiveness or encompassing love. Since arriving in Skyrim, she'd seen little more than war and betrayal, vengeance masquerading as concern for the good of all, and the burden of true honour to the man who would make himself High King...

What she had come to know of love was nothing more than a scorched memory now, something greater than love, deeper than passion, something fierce and consuming and utterly without mercy, a mess of tattered loyalty and broken promises that had left Skyrim bleeding.

That was what she _knew_.

And this weeping mother before her with her teachings of compassion and forgiveness was nothing to her at all.

That very morning, she had awoken to a narrow bed in a cold room in Ivarstead, the winter wind whistling as it found the gaps in the walls, pulling her from a sleep that had never truly claimed her. Into the grey dawn she'd stepped, into the shadow of the mountain, and every hope of redemption she'd held onto, every good intention she'd carried in her heart, all of it vanished as the sun crested over trees and suddenly absolution was seven-thousand steps too far out of her grasp. Small and shamed, she had turned her back on all of it as the morning light touched upon the sacred mountain. With no purpose, no place to go, she had foolishly followed her feet and hadn't stopped until she'd reached Riften.

Now here she was, and for what?

An empty stall and a forgotten promise, that was what she'd done it for.

With a sigh, she touched her cool hands to her eyes, to press them closed and shut out the sight of Lady Mara and all the goodness, selflessness, and mercy that she herself would never possess.

"Oh, Maddie," she scolded herself, "what are you doing here?"

"That's a fair question, lass."

She would find it very disconcerting later on just how badly he startled her then. She whirled around in her seat to see him standing at the back of the small chapel, bracing a shoulder casually against the wall, a thick leather hood pulled up over his long auburn hair.

" _You_ ," she said, suddenly breathless, but it was stranger still how taken by surprise she sounded when she'd planned it that way from the beginning. Just as she'd known he would – hoped and prayed he would – he had given into his curiosity, the talk of his town, and come to find her first.

Brynjolf lifted his head then to give her a wolfish grin, his eyes like candlelight.

And all at once the world ceased to turn.


	3. The Thief's Proposal

The day Archer returned to Riften, Brynjolf was in the foulest of moods.

Most of his evening had been spent with Mercer. The two of them had been as thick as thieves of late, if you'd pardon the expression, assessing the state of the game in and around Riften since Aringoth had quietly bowed out – and all their pieces, so carefully and painstakingly placed, had one-by-one begun to fall.

It was to be kept in mind that Mercer was a meticulous man by nature. He never did anything quickly. The decision to send Vex into Goldenglow had not come lightly, and ever since that failure, every move made to bring the damage under control had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. No one in their organization was a stranger to cause and effect, but as thieves they were generally very, very good at _avoiding_ the consequences of their actions. Aringoth's sudden shift had unbalanced things, and they were all of them in a scramble to put things to rights.

And now, to add insult to injury, a number of local business owners had taken it into their heads that the traitorous old elf had the right idea, and were ready to follow suit. A few mornings past, Brynjolf had woken to find he had a little civil uprising on his hands when the three biggest thorns in his side – Keerava, Haelga, and the boorish Bersi Honey-Hand – had been most unwelcoming during his last scheduled, and very sociable visit. Each of them in turn had skipped his small talk and refused him the month's rent with the same tight, arrogant smile.

Mercer had not been surprised, not in the least, when he'd been given the news. In truth, Brynjolf was not much taken by it either, not after all the hem and haw and hesitation of his last visits, but the encounter had left him vexed to no end. He couldn't remember the last time a soft word and teasing smile had failed to inspire Haelga to reach for the coinpurse she kept knotted to her belt, all with a blush darkening those pale, painted cheeks.

And the day his charm and silver-tongue failed him was one to be considered very carefully indeed.

Mercer was of a mind to pull this noxious weed of rebellion before it had a chance to sprout and spread among the other shop owners. Brynjolf thought a more subtle touch was needed. He didn't fancy the idea of having someone bloody Haelga's comely face over a few lost septims, even if she was a cruel harpy when it suited her. Mercer was right about sending a clear message to these indignant – _tenants –_ but there was no use in denying that Brynjolf disagreed with this iron-fisted approach. In time, they had argued, their voices raising louder and louder over the thunderous rush of the water flowing into the cistern, until all at once Mercer's voice had dropped to an ominous low and he'd made it perfectly plain that the unruly shopkeepers were to be dealt with one way or the other.

Even after all the years Bryn had spent with the guild, the steel in Mercer's eyes could still put the fear in him when the moment was right, and he felt once more that lanky, grinning wretch who'd been caught picking the right pocket in the right city. Now here he was, a fully grown man and thoroughly put in his place. But before he could let his frustration goad him into saying something he would later regret, he waved Mercer off and stalked out of the cistern, grumbling curses and catching furtive glances the whole way.

"You two at it again?" Delvin asked him as he entered the Flagon, his smug grin hiding nothing.

Brynjolf sat down at the table across from his old friend. "Must be Tirdas," he said with an easy smile. Instead of waiting for Vekel, he reached over and swiped the bottle of dark ale right out of Delvin's hand. The old thief made no move to stop him, and only watched with amusement as Brynjolf proceeded to take a deep swallow from what had only moments before been _his_ ale.

"Time to smarten yourselves up, Bryn. You're beginning to worry the children."

Brynjolf put the bottle down on the table before him, and watched Delvin motion for Vekel to bring them two more. The old thief then leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest, and studied his friend critically. Brynjolf had to wonder just what it was that he saw – and then decided he didn't want to know the answer.

"What would you do then, Mallory?" he asked instead, an attempt to shift focus.

Delvin chuckled. "Me? I'd get to the bottom of whatever is going on 'round here right quick before something else goes wrong, that's what I'd do."

"There's you and your curse again." Brynjolf sat back to watch his friend, but instead of the sly smile he'd expected, the old thief's grizzled face was unusually dark, his jaw set.

"No, I'm not talking about no curse," Delvin said, ignoring Brynjolf as he arched his brow. "I mean Mercer. There's something what's got him playing it too safe lately. I got a slew of jobs piling up and no one to run 'em. Goldenglow's got them all spooked."

"Aye," Brynjolf agreed, "a terrible thing." He sighed, knowing that if his three great thorns topside persisted in their sudden fit of conscience, it would only serve to worsen the shortfall of morale the guild had been suffering from of late. If there were easy solutions or quick ones, he could not see them through the jaded haze the past few weeks had sunk him in. Mercer was not to be blamed for the state their little family was in. Perhaps Vekel had been right when he'd said that the world was changing – and perhaps there was simply no place in this new world for people like them.

"Oh cheer up, eh?" Delvin said, offering him a smile. "It's getting late. Nothing to do for it now but drown our troubles 'til tomorrow. Here's Vekel now, good lad."

The barkeep put two bottles of the same dark ale on the table. He then pulled a slip of yellowed parchment from the pocket of his apron and handed it to Bryn. "Came for you while you were with Mercer," was all he said before he went back to his counter and his favourite filthy rag.

"What's that, then?" Delvin asked, as meddlesome as ever.

Brynjolf read the few words on the parchment. He frowned. "Something that needs taking care of," he said, and stood.

Delvin laughed, shaking his head. "Another one? Isn't it about time to give that up?"

"Mercer's orders," said Brynjolf with an apologetic smile. He left the ale untouched on the table and called to Vekel. "When did you say this arrived?"

"Must have been a few hours ago."

Brynjolf was certain that Delvin watched him closely as he left the Flagon, but as a man who had spent a lifetime watching other people as they went about their daily lives, he was also quite certain that nothing, not his face or his gait or the way he held his shoulders, conveyed anything but ease and indifference to another of Mercer's overcautious precautions.

What he'd said to Delvin was true: Mercer wanted the city gates watched, and had put Maven's considerable influence to work doing just that, slipping gold into enough of the right hands up at the barracks until all the gate guards on every shift were reporting to him.

Most times, there was nothing to be reported at all. It was nothing sinister Mercer wanted, and that was what made it all so terribly easy. If a traveller walked through the gates – north, south, or dockside – Mercer wanted to know about it. Since taking Falkreath from the Imperials, the Stormcloaks now controlled every road that led to and from Cyrodiil, and Riften saw few travellers these days. But for months now, the gates had been quietly watched. Dozens of discreet enquiries had turned up nothing of interest to the guild master. The slips of paper had come and gone, each one in its turn pointing to Imperial peddlers, Bosmer hunters and Orc mercenaries, all whom had come and gone in their own due time as well.

No sign of a little Breton in Stormcloak blue, no sweet-faced girl with a secret bigger than she was.

Until tonight, it appeared.

Only Delvin knew why Brynjolf continued to take a special interest in the task, just as it was Delvin who always seemed to know a little bit of everything – and all of it none of his business. But the old thief could usually be counted upon to leave well enough alone. His offhand comment, harmless though it was, kept nagging at Bryn as he made his way out of the underground.

Not wanting to risk the cistern again, lest he be drawn back in for another round with Mercer, he took the long way, the winding maze of dark tunnels that led to the canal, where the torchlight played tricks on the unwary and the denizens preyed on the unwise. The air was close here, and damp, smelling of foul things left unearthed for far too long. He was glad to finally come to the exit that led to the lower walkways of the canal, but as he reached for the latch on the heavy door, he realized the guardsman's note was still crumpled tightly in his fist.

He did not need to read it again to remind himself of its contents. Branded into his mind, those few words, and he found himself at the mercy of their curious implication. It was all he could do to check the eagerness in his step as he walked out of the stone alcove, the groan of the frozen iron gate all but announcing his presence to the guards on patrol. He broke no law being out after dark, but all the same, he had no intention of being seen. He pulled up his hood, and made for the stairs near the southward gate, tossing the note into the waters of the canal as he went.

The streets were deserted this time of night. It was a rare thing now for him to come topside past sunset, and for a moment he scarcely recognized his own city. Cloaked in darkness and utterly still, every railing and rooftop was touched with white frost that gleamed in the passing torchlight as the guards went about their routine patrols, restlessly moving to keep winter's chill at bay. A few weeks past, on the night he'd come to fetch Vex from the meadery cellar, he'd been blind to all but the shadows he'd slipped through, his focus solely on what he was there to do. As if for the first time that year, he saw the simple beauty of winter in Riften, and he paused, the same queer feeling coming over him as the night of the Goldenglow job, when he'd stood over Lake Honrich to see the dragon in the northwest and had known it for what it was, harbinger of a coming that none could escape.

A cheerful thought, that, one that sent a shudder straight through him, and he was of half a mind to leave the traveller – _girl, Breton, south gate –_ until the morning, when he heard a door open, the inn's southward door, a familiar sound made lonely as it echoed far in the winter stillness.

His cloak scarcely whispered against the stone as he ducked into the shadows that clung to the soot-stained wall of the blacksmith's shop. The softly glowing embers of the forge worked to his disadvantage, blinding his thief's eyes to the darkness that stretched beyond. Sparks danced across his vision as he carefully crept along that narrow strip of shadow beneath the blacksmith's awning. With the forge at his back, he stopped again, lingering in a strange pocket of heat that brought a thin sheen of sweat to his upper lip on that cold night of early Sun's Dusk.

He saw her then as his eyes adjusted, saw the small figure cut against the gloom near the inn's darkened doorway. Slouched against the wall, face tipped to the stars. The cloak and hood well hid the stranger's identity, and the shadows did the rest.

And so he did the only thing left for him to do: he stood back to observe. With his back to the stone archway of the dockside gate, he kept a close eye on the strange figure, even as the minutes ticked away and a chill began to settle in his bones for the stillness.

And when a patrolling guard walked past, oblivious to the thief in the shadows, Brynjolf reached out.

"Care to make a few septims, lad?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "Come back around the market and chase that little dove back inside. I'd like a word with her."

The guardsman said nothing and continued about his patrol, but he did as he had been bid and stopped to talk to the girl, blocking Brynjolf's view of her when. What was said between them was too quiet even for his keen ears, but after a few moments of conversation, the girl nodded and stepped away from the wall. But instead of going back inside, she followed after the guard as he led her around the far side of the plaza and across the canal.

And as the light moved across her, even though her face was shadowed, Brynjolf realized in one moment of terrifying clarity that he recognized the ashen cloak, the blue dress, the surety in her step –

" _The way they walk, what they're wearing,"_ he'd told her once, " _a dead giveaway."_

– and he knew then that all his waiting, all his wondering had finally come to its end, and his real troubles – well, those were only just beginning.

With his palms sweating and his brow knit in curiosity, Brynjolf trailed behind at a safe distance, watching as the nameless guardsman escorted the girl to the entrance of the temple. Hiding in the shadows on the other side of the high courtyard wall, he heard the doors open and close, and could not help but smile to himself beneath his hood. As the guardsman went past, he paid him double the coin he'd originally intended. A job well done deserved as much.

He waited a good long while before he climbed the steps. It was risky to enter the temple through the front doors, and he could hear Delvin cursing his name clear as day in his head as he slipped through.

The air within was warm and heavy, smelling of herbs and curling smoke, and the candles had mostly gone out. But there was no mistaking her now, the young woman slumped in the pew with her back to the door, her hood folded down to show her dark hair tucked away from her pale face. It crossed his mind to approach her, to sit beside her, frighten her though he may, but he held back, remaining near the exit with his back to the wall, mindful of the loose board that would give it all away.

Completely lost to thought or prayer, she took no notice of him, but whatever or whomever held her so enthralled seemed to weigh heavily, because it was not long after he'd settled against the wall when she sighed wearily, a sad sound to his waiting ears. He watched as she let her face fall into her waiting hands.

" _Oh, Maddie,_ " she said to herself in the smallest of voices, " _what are you doing here?_ "

Brynjolf smiled. "That's a fair question, lass," he said, revealing himself.

All of it played out beautifully for him. He would never forget the gasp he was rewarded with then, nor would he forget the way her eyes widened at the sight of him as she spun around.

" _You_ ," she hissed.

He grinned all the more at her surprise, and lifted his chin so that she might see a bit more of his face beneath his hood, enjoying the way she clutched at the back of the pew.

"Were you expecting someone else?" he asked. "Shall I go fetch you the priest?"

"I didn't think you'd find me so quickly."

"But you did want me to find you," he said, though it was no question, and she nodded, though he'd sought no answer. Her need of him was written all over her face. He knew too well the desperation he saw there in her eyes, knew that fear and that shame, the sheer emptiness in those jaded and tired eyes.

The girl was on the run, and with nowhere else to go, she'd come to him.

He sighed to himself then and left his place by the wall. She watched him warily, but she didn't move away as he slipped around the pillar and sat down beside her on the bench.

"You look as though you've walked a long road, lass."

"Yes," she said, and nothing else.

A lingering silence fell between them then, a defence they both gladly hid behind, and for a while all he knew was the flicker of dying candles and the burden of Mara's remorse. He leaned into the back of the bench, and kept his arms crossed over his chest to stay his restless fingers. As for Archer, utterly calm but for what her eyes had betrayed, she kept her hands folded neatly in her lap, her rigid back never touching the bench, proper and self-conscious in his presence. However, it was not long before he recognized a tremble in her that he simply couldn't ignore.

"Perhaps you'd best tell me why you came running all this way," he said, trying to be gentle and making a decent job of it. Their previous encounter, brief though it had been, had shown him that the girl guarded her tongue carefully. He entertained no hopes of hearing her tale of woe. And surely enough, she didn't answer him, but instead turned those green eyes on him, and for a moment he was lost in what he was certain was to be the death of him.

But in the blink of an eye, those strange, sad eyes, she let her chin fall and she looked away, and Brynjolf knew with utter conviction that the wisest, _safest_ course of action would be to send this mesmerizing little thing on her way before she did more damage to his life and to his guild than he could readily repair.

But instead he smiled at her and said, "If I remember correctly, lass, the last time you came to me for help, you made quite the mess around here. I never thought I'd be seeing you again."

"Are you disappointed?"

"No, just terribly curious."

"I promise you, no trouble has followed me to Riften," she said.

"A grand promise," he replied, "but I'm afraid it's not yours to make. I'll warn you now, if it's the Thalmor –"

She shook her head. "Not today."

Brynjolf chuckled at that, and the sound echoed through the lonely chapel.

"That's good to hear," he said, "but the question remains, what is it that you want, Maddie?"

She stiffened at his familiarity, but she did not rise to his challenge. More clever a girl than any other currently under his supervision by far, and he continued to be impressed, aye – but he was still far from convinced that she was as innocent as she tried to lead him to believe.

"I just – I need a place to lay low for a while," she said quietly. A single rushed breath that concealed more secrets than it revealed. "I thought perhaps–"

"The Ratway," he said for her. He frowned, and shook his head firmly. "There's naught for you down there but bones."

She gave him a sidelong glare, her mouth twisted. He remembered this stubborn fire. "It's an old man's cell filled with books and rot," she said. "What are those things to you?"

"A few mouldy books?" He waved a dismissive hand. "Very little."

"Then why take his coin for so many years and not mine now? Why deny me?"

"Because I have another offer for you," he said. "One that I'm certain you'll find much more tempting." She blushed properly then, and he couldn't help but grin devilishly at the wicked thoughts that settled in his mind. "We could call it a business arrangement," he clarified for her as she turned those guilty green eyes on him. "One that could be beneficial to us both."

"Your business is none of mine," she said. "I have no interest in– _in–_ "

"Aye, of that I have no doubt," he said, "but you're a natural at it, regardless. Isn't that so, lass?"

"Regardless," she said shortly. Her eyes had lost none of their disdain. "I am no thief."

"A position with the guild can offer you more protection than that old man's cell. There's no safer place in all of Skyrim." He tried to sound reasonable, but it was a bit of a stretch. After all, he'd seen the locks on the old man's door with his own eyes. "I haven't forgotten the favours you've done for the guild. Run jobs for me, and you could earn enough coin to–"

"I have no desire for coin."

"Then what do you desire?"

"Anonymity," she said, and she smiled then, faintly and fleetingly.

And that was when he knew he had her.

"Well, you have my terms," he said. He reached a casual arm out along the back of the bench. She glanced at it warily before sitting up a little straighter. He grinned. "None of my boys will bother you, lass, that I can promise. They're every one of them hiding from something, as well. Part of the trade, I suppose."

"You suppose," she muttered, and he watched smugly as her eyes travelled the length of his frame, from the cut of his hood to his arm so inappropriately close to his boots stretched out beneath the pew in front of them, and when she spoke again, it was to the buckles on his chest and not to his face. "But there is no anonymity in this. I've been to your Flagon, they know my face, and Maven Black-Briar –"

"Don't fret over Maven now," he said. "All this dirty work and drudgery is below her. I doubt the two of you will ever meet." He shrugged his shoulders. "And if it's unavoidable, well, I believe I may have the solution for that."

"And what about the others?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What of them?"

"You might trust them but I do not."

"Trust is not something thieves have in abundance," he chuckled. She was still so focused on her troubles that she did not see the solutions he provided in spades. "Believe me, lass, you're going to fit right in."

"You act as though I've already said yes," she said with a frown.

"So far as I can tell, you can't say no," he said, but her sad little face weighed on him sorely, and he sighed. "We take no oaths to bind us here. You are free to leave whensoever you choose."

"Just as well," she muttered, more to herself than to him, "I'm no good with oaths."

He gave her a grim smile. "Neither am I."

What followed then was a long stretch of tense silence as Archer carefully watched his face, but in his arrogance he knew full well there was nothing for her to find there, even if he could fathom for a moment what it was that she sought. What it was that she truly wanted. From him, from his guild, from the divines themselves.

He only hoped she knew the answer when she finally found it.

After a time, the girl stood, and out of respect, he did as well. She seemed smaller than he remembered somehow, and as she lifted her hood to hide her hair once more, he realized there to be a meekness about her, something to be read in the bow of her head and the sag of her shoulders, the way she looked at her feet instead of into his eyes. That wildfire spark of wilful charm was gone, sputtered out with tears since cried and dried away. And when finally she did look at him, it was with such pale vacancy that he found himself shivering at the hurt and the loneliness he saw in her eyes, and he knew that whatever trouble and heartbreak she claimed to have left behind still kept her up nights, and haunted her dreams with shadows.

"It seems there's no persuading you," she said, so ignorant to all she told him by just looking into his eyes, "so I suppose that means we have a deal."

"Oh, there's always a chance you'll persuade me into anything," he said, laughing heartily then. Her eyes fluttered upwards to follow his echo into the rafters and her cheeks resumed their blushing. "You give up too easily, lass."

She stuck out her hand, tiny and cold in his as he reached out to grasp it, and in that single touch, the deal was struck, as good as writ in blood.

"Will you tell me now what it is you intend?" she asked, her sweet little mouth twisted dubiously.

"What I intend is to hide you in plain sight, sweet Maddie," he said. "Don't you trust me?"

"Trust is not something thieves have in abundance," she said, "but I suppose I'll have to try."

Brynjolf grinned down at her. Oh, but he loved a challenge.


	4. Bait and Switch

The Ratway was much as she remembered it.

Time seemed to stand still there in the darkness beneath Riften. It was an eerie feeling, and it was one that she would become very familiar with in the weeks to come, but on that first night, as she followed the light of Brynjolf's torch through the twisted maze of cramped tunnels, she could not help but feel a sense of terrible foreboding. It settled deep into her bones, and her flesh, still burning with cold, broke out into pinpricks all over again.

"Not much farther now," muttered Brynjolf, a pace or two ahead, but he did not look back.

She stayed close. She wore no armour, carried no weapon, and felt more vulnerable than she cared to admit. Ahead of her, however, Brynjolf walked on, certain that nothing – and no one – would attack them. She wished she could share in that confidence. No, it wasn't confidence, she realized, but sheer arrogance, and she was beginning to suspect that it would cause her no end of grief while she remained with him.

Still, it was preferable to the presence of some, or the company of others.

After a time, they came to a high, lonely chamber where a ramshackle drawbridge was lowered, leading a dark path to the corridor on the other side. Down below, Archer could hear the skeevers moving about in the black filth. One of them screeched as Brynjolf tossed his torch down to the lower level, a brilliant stream of light like dragonfire that burned only an instant before it hit the wet stone below. It sputtered a moment longer and then died altogether. The darkness they were left with was consuming.

They crossed the bridge together in silence. She'd not walked a pace beside him until then, always following after. Light spilled out from the next corridor, but Brynjolf stopped short. He pulled at a lever on the wall to raise the drawbridge, closing off access to the tunnels they'd just come through. The groan of the ironworks sent the skeevers running, but all too soon the echoes stopped chasing each other around the vaulted ceiling. The Ratway fell deadly silent, until a single drop of water raining from the ceiling came as loud as a hammer blow and her heartbeat was the drum to which she would march into this dark new dawn.

Her stomach churned. She wanted to go _home –_ but Skyrim _was_ home, this long path of ruined hopes, and the home that she wanted with all her heart no longer existed, a mother long dead and a room never hers, guardians who loved her not, a life chosen for her that she didn't even want, and so she'd _run._

But now here she was, at the end of another cycle of running, of discovery and defeat, and she was so _tired_ , so that when Brynjolf finally turned to her, he found her sagged against the wall once more, and she felt so sick and lost that the gentle smile he gave her was enough reason to hope, and try again.

And so it began – and more the fool was she.

Brynjolf braced an arm against the wall, effectively boxing her in. She'd not noticed him come so close until he was almost upon her. She glanced to his hand set there against the stone, but said nothing. His closeness did not worry her. Never mind that she could shout him off his feet if she chose – another man would have laughed to see it done, callous in his disregard for the sacred and the divine.

But _he_ was not here, and she kept her mouth shut tight. She tried to push him from her mind. Utter futility. The sulking bear, the would-be king, he lingered like a shadow in her thoughts.

"A word of caution before we head down there, lass," Brynjolf said, chasing her shadows with his light, and that soft smile was still there in his whisper, low and smooth.

She was not eager to continue, the raised drawbridge at her back looming as a point of no return, and these words did little to assuage her conscience. "You couldn't have mentioned this while we were in the temple?" she asked. Ever indignant, ever ungrateful, little Maddie and her mouth. She frowned, and bit her lip to keep herself from saying more.

"You were right to be concerned over the familiarity of your face," he said. "Mercer's been keeping an eye open for you since your last visit."

"Mercer." It came out slowly, that unfamiliar name in her mouth, but the weight and importance Brynjolf gave to the man just by speaking his name left no question as to who he was. His master, leader of his guild of thieves. Someone she was almost certain she had not met on her last whirlwind sprint through the depths of the Ratway. "He has no quarrel with me," she said, shaking her head. "I helped to return your man, I _gave_ him your traitor, what more could he want from me?"

Brynjolf smiled wryly, but did not deign to give reply. He backed off then with a shrug, but for a lingering moment she could still feel the warmth of him pressing in on her before all at once the cold, damp air rushed in, chilling her all over again. She sighed, and silently called herself a fool.

What more could this Mercer want? The answer was simple, though she took no pleasure in realizing it. These men were thieves. There was never an end to their wanting. Her worth lay in what the Thalmor wanted from her. She doubted it truly mattered to the guild what that was.

How wrong she'd been to presume.

"Well then, what is it you propose?"

Brynjolf gave her that grin again, the smug, knowing one that sent her stomach to fluttering. The one that made her want to check her pockets. The one she could not trust. But once again, he gave her no answer, and once again she found no joy in coming to the conclusion that she was being led blind into the lion's den. And so she balked and did not follow, and the look he gave her was curious.

"Don't you trust me, lass?"

She frowned. "Must we do this again?"

The thief cocked an eyebrow. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he seemed to be ignoring her question in favour of waiting for her answer to his own. It was just as well. For all his arrogance, it truly seemed to be honour among thieves to him, no matter his claims to the contrary. His was a dual nature, she saw now, and she wondered for a moment how keen the edge on which she balanced was, before she realized that there was really only one way to find out.

And so she went along after him and his grin, quietly now, her own lips pressed tight against every question or cry of protest that gathered on her tongue in the meantime. She was led shortly into another chamber, this one well-lit with a table at the centre, a meeting of corridors devoid of other occupants. It was into one of these corridors that Brynjolf ducked, and into which she dutifully, regretfully followed.

What she left behind in that room were her memories of another time, of facing down the Thalmor with the old man at her back, the thieves and their guild already forgotten in the wake of the true threat, her destiny, bearing down with golden blade to spill her blood there in the dark, witch blood, dragon blood – she'd stood over them, victorious, and it was only the blood of Isles that stained the stones of the Ratway that night. It had dried to rust now like so much filth, and her searching eyes could not tell one from the other.

She was so lost to thought that she walked straight into Brynjolf, who'd stopped short of opening the door that waited at the bottom of a short flight of stairs. She stepped back, recovering quickly, embarrassed. When he glanced over his shoulder at her, he was smirking again, and she felt her cheeks flare with warmth.

"That eager, lass?" he asked. She had no reply, but her flush kept on, and she hoped dearly that the flickering torchlight would mask her face and the heat within that felt as a fire. And, to her relief, if he noticed the stain in her cheeks, he did not comment nor show the slightest interest. His eyes avoided hers as he opened the door, and without so much as a warning, took her by the arm and all but shoved her through.

Archer found herself suddenly in a very familiar place. The Ragged Flagon, the beating heart beneath the city. Intrigue and rumours flowed like blood through this place, and the changing of gold between hands was as precious as water to the dying. She had been here only once – well, twice, in truth, once in the coming and once in the going – but it remained the same, the stale stench and reaching shadows, the sound of hushed voices as they carried across the cistern.

Brynjolf loomed over her, and his tight grip on her arm did not relent. "Keep your head down and your mouth shut," he advised her, his voice so low she could scarcely make out more than a steady rumble. "I'll come for you when it's clear."

And with that, he gave her another little shove toward a stone alcove, and left her alone.

With a sigh of relief that had more than a little tremble to it, Archer crept deeper into the shadows of the alcove, mindful of her every step as she picked herself out a decent spot from which to observe what went on. What she saw revealed little to her. It was what she heard that concerned her. Among the empty barrels and drifting cobwebs, she did as she had done all her life – she watched, and she learned.

Brynjolf was in no hurry. He walked slowly around the edge of the cistern, his shoulders straight and his steps assured. He walked as a man who knew his purpose and his place, now matter how lowly his betters above might consider him. He walked unburdened, without concern to the opinions of others – something she certainly did not know how to do. She, a half-blood bastard – and a _girl_ no less – walk with her head held so high? Perish the thought.

But this man...

His was not an arrogance born of privilege but of sheer pride. There was no certainty in this world for men like him, but for that which he made for himself, and she found she could admire that, could almost envy it, and the thought unsettled her deeply.

The others in the cistern were drawn to him. He was greeted immediately, people rose from their chairs, nodded their heads, called his name – but there was one who did not call out, or nod, or acknowledge him at all. A slight figure on the gallery, hidden almost completely in shadows, hunched over what Archer eventually came to realize was a book. And it was then that she stopped watching Brynjolf, forgot him almost entirely, as she studied the hooded woman on the gallery, the one with the book and no time for the thief and his commanding presence. Above it, she seemed. Transcendent.

Madeline liked her.

She did not know how much time passed while she crouched in the darkness of that damp and dreary alcove. She did not dare even to stand and stretch her legs. It must have been past midnight when eventually the cistern began to empty, as the night's promise of intrigue beckoned them away, one by wicked one. Soon, Brynjolf was alone with only the barkeep and the lone woman with her book, and no sooner had the barkeep disappeared into a back room that Brynjolf was stepping up onto the gallery to lean over and whisper something in the woman's ear.

Her head jerked up, and she peered through the darkness into Archer's alcove, and for a moment, she felt her heart begin to race as their eyes met. Her breath caught and she _froze_ , though she'd not been moving at all. It lasted but an instant, their locked eyes, before the woman on the gallery looked up to Brynjolf and nodded – so slight, so subtle, _was_ it a nod? – and the thief was looking into the alcove, too, but his eyes did not find Madeline lingering in the shadows, and she could not for the life of her explain her disappointment.

He came for her then, and she stepped out to meet him. Her legs ached; she put a hand to the slimy stone to steady herself those first few steps.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

She nodded, biting her lip to keep the questions at bay.

Brynjolf chuckled. "There's no need to look so frightened, lass. You're in good hands."

"Whose hands, exactly?" she asked. She wanted to laugh but she couldn't summon the nerve.

He only smiled – truly only half a smile, wry and distant – and motioned for her to follow. Reluctantly, she did.

The Ragged Flagon was all but abandoned at this hour, thanks to Brynjolf's careful work. Voices came from somewhere that she couldn't see, quietly muffled, displaced, so she tried her best to pay them no mind. Other sounds, familiar, intimate sounds, came from elsewhere, and these she found harder to ignore. Her blush returned, as fierce as ever. When Brynjolf looked back at her, his smile was more obvious this time, a show of teeth, oh so knowing.

"Best get used to the close quarters, Maddie," he said. "A secret does not keep for long."

She only swallowed against the sudden dryness of her mouth, and said nothing, wondering all the while just how, then, he planned to keep _hers_.

The smell of spilled ale and smoke was less strong up on the gallery, but it was colder, darker, and the quiet was fearsome and empty. The woman, a Bosmer, Archer realized, dressed in pale robes with her hood draped just so, had put aside her book to watch her approach behind Brynjolf. The thief stood aside and nudged her forward, remaining behind to lean against a rail, his arms crossed in that casual way he had, as if everything that was to unfold would happen for the singular benefit of his own amusement.

"This is she?" asked the strange Bosmer woman, and the eyes she fixed onto Madeline were dark, deep, and deadly in their piercing.

"Aye," said Brynjolf. He did not move forward, nor offer anything else.

"I suppose I can work with her face," said the woman, staring hard at Archer whilst simultaneously disregarding her entirely. As if she were not truly there, a statue, a painting, instead of a flesh and blood girl. "After all," the stranger added haughtily, "a sculptor cannot always choose the finest clay."

Archer shook her head. "I don't understand," she said. "What is she talking about?" She gave the woman the same discourtesy, turning to speak to Brynjolf instead of to the woman herself.

The woman laughed coldly. "I assumed you had brought her to see me about her face, Brynjolf."

Archer bristled at being ignored again. "I don't –"

"Your _face_ , fool girl," said the woman, turning her eyes once more to Madeline. "To have it sculpted into something more... _artful_ than Nature has bestowed upon you."

She felt a telltale surge of anger rise up within her. Her face was _fine_ , her father's eyes, her mother's mouth, the Villiers' cheekbones. "My _face_ ," she began, but Brynjolf stepped forward then, giving her a cutting look that stopped her sentence short.

"Aye," he said to the woman. "She's here as a client. Will you help her?"

The woman snorted delicately. "You know my fee, Brynjolf."

Brynjolf smile winningly. "And you know I'm good for it, Galathil."

" _You_ ," said the woman – this Galathil, "you are good for _nothing_."

Brynjolf grumbled with easy good nature. "See Delvin about it tomorrow, then, and tell him I sent you. No one carries that much gold on them." He laughed. "Though I suppose I wouldn't mind slipping past the fool that does in a crowded market."

Galathil sniffed, unimpressed. She stared hard at Brynjolf a long moment before her eyes flicked back to Archer, who was still standing before her, still feeling terribly out of place. "Very well," said Galathil, which was followed by a much put upon sigh. "Come here, girl."

It took all the will she could summon not to turn and walk away. The closest she came was a glance back, at her way out, but she caught sight of Brynjolf then, arms folded, eyes guarded, the smirk on his lips enough to drive her to distraction, and in that distraction, Galathil cleared her throat expectantly and all she could do was go on. After all, they had an arrangement.

The Bosmer woman was annoyed now. She reached forward with bony fingers to pinch Archer's jaw. "Well?" she asked, mouth curled in distaste, "shall I remake your face?"

All her new-found courage fled in an instant. She jerked her chin out of the woman's hand. "I beg your pardon? _Remake_ my face?" It was only then that she understood Brynjolf's remark about hiding her in plain sight, and she was suddenly ashamed at her utter foolishness. What else had she blindly agreed to in her desire to disappear?

"Calm yourself, lass," said Brynjolf, his amusement clear. "Nothing too drastic now, just a bit of a change to throw them off the scent."

"Throw _who_ off the scent, exactly?" Archer asked, wilfully forgetting her vow of compliance.

"Oh, whoever might pick it up," he said, and grinned. She still couldn't make herself like that grin, let alone _trust_ it. "Now get on with it. You're costing me a fair bit of coin."

She was quiet after that. As she rightly should have been, for once Galathil began to run her fingers over her face, she knew not if she'd have been able to speak if she tried. Out of wonder, out of fear, it didn't seem to matter. Never in her life had she felt so entranced, not even beneath the onslaught of the power in words cut into stone, the rush of a soul bearing down upon her, pressing her to the earth in abject obedience, ashamed of her mortality.

This – this was _different_...

Never before had Madeline been touched so gently, or with such care. Her very skin of her seemed to warm beneath the delicate trace of Galathil's slender fingers along her jaw, her temples, her cheekbones, but was left with a ghostly chill its wake. Here and there a touch more firm, yet no less tender, the smudge of a thumb along childhood scars, a line of heat like a kiss of slanted sunlight, and all the while, those dark, fathomless eyes graced every inch of her face, each freckle, each pore.

Time seemed to hold its breath as Archer stood fast beneath the Bosmer's attentions. It wasn't until the elf combed her fingers through her hair that Archer's doubts returned. She watched with wide eyes as the strands of dark hair _changed_ before her very eyes, lengthening, lightening, turning a shade of rich, autumnal red. Down past her shoulders her hair grew with just a brush of Galathil's bony fingers, and despite herself, Archer gasped and tried to jerk her head away again.

"Sit still, girl," hissed the elf, giving her newly-long hair an impatient yank. "I've almost finished."

And true to her word, she had. A few minutes later – long, agonizing, anxious minutes later – the sculptor removed her hands from Archer's jaw and folded them demurely in her lap. Her gaze was critical and unforgiving, but she soon nodded with arrogant satisfaction and looked to Brynjolf.

"What say you?"

Brynjolf moved away from the rail to stand beside Galathil. His smile as his eyes met Archer's were difficult to read. For a moment, she felt half the child, chastised and belittled, and for one foolish, frightening instant, she felt as though she might cry. She blinked hastily, and looked away.

"Oh, one final detail," said Galathil. "Close your eyes." Archer did. "Now open them." And again, she did as she was bid. She was greeted by the Bosmer's smiling face, and it was a terrible sight. "Much better. I look forward to seeing you again around this squalid, skeever-infested gutter, Madeline. If you'd simply unknot that sullen tongue of yours, I feel we might actually have an intellectual conversation."

Archer very much doubted it, but instead of saying as much, she kept her tongue neatly knotted and only nodded politely. Galithil regarded her only a moment longer before she picked up her book from where it lay beside her, chose a page at random, and went back to properly ignoring everything that went on around her. But then –

"Brynjolf," she said, and it was like a command, that single word, and without question he stepped up and went to her. Archer watched with mounting curiosity as he leaned over the elf, his face hidden from her as Galathil whispered something to him, something that Archer could not hear no matter how she strained her ears, those thin, grey lips moving with such soft precision that she felt suddenly frightened and small. And when Brynjolf straightened and glanced back at her, there was a shadow there that had not been there before, and Archer did not know what to say.

"Leave," said Galathil, waving Brynjolf away.

And with that, it was over.

When Brynjolf's hand touched upon her elbow to guide her away, Archer was not truly surprised. She allowed it, if only because she felt a little lightheaded, as if she'd been spun in circles one too many times. The Ragged Flagon seemed far too quiet now, and even the soft, sensual sounds she'd heard as she'd entered had turned to cool silence and the echoes across the water had grown deafening. She followed where she was led, off the gallery and up the steps into the dark shadows, where any one of the arched alcoves could have held a wicked secret.

But the alcoves held nothing but forgotten goods and broken furniture, coated with years of dust and death, as Archer had come to discover, and she found the neglected spaces did not make her heart leap as they once had. Brynjolf let her go in the protection of a stone column, where once they had stood to measure one another, where once she had distracted him with a heated kiss while she slipped the truth into his pockets. The memory was not a pleasant one, tainted with all that had come before and the mess that had come after, but still she remembered that kiss, the sudden courage that had sent her nerves thrumming, the smile on his lips and the clinging scent of leather, and even the simple recollection was enough to make her tremble.

If the thief noticed, or even remembered, he gave no indication. His face was impassive, his manner distant, as he turned to her. "And here we are, lass," he said quietly, and he gave a quick glance around before he added, "I want you to keep a low profile tomorrow. Do you think you can manage it?"

Old words came back to her, and she said them without thought. "Don't worry about me. I know how to lay low."

Brynjolf gave her hair – now _red_ hair, and woefully long – a tug, and she saw a trace of a smile as he said, "Oh, I have my doubts about that."

She pursed her lips. How little he knew. She wanted to ask then about Galathil, and what she'd said in parting, but she knew better than to bother. Whatever it had been, whatever had caused him to look at her in such a way, she was not sure she wanted to know. The night had held far too many surprises already.

He put a firm hand on the small of her back, and she was led without choice around the cistern to the door of the tavern, the door that led back into the Ratway, all those dark, twisting corridors. And she thought that would be all, this silent escort and a door slammed in her face, but when he put his hand to the latch, he paused –

_she made it all of five paces before she stopped, and turned, walking back to him, knowing..._

" _I believe this is supposed to be farewell, lass," he said, and then she –_

Archer blinked, startled by the vivid flash, and when Brynjolf turned to her, his hand still on the latch, she found herself blushing as he watched her face closely. It was with weighted disappointment that she realized he must be studying what the elf had made of her, and her heart sank with the wondering. She reached up and touched her cheek, but it felt no different, and she frowned.

"A decent bit of work," he said, offering her a bit of a smile, "and well worth the coin."

She pulled away, and her frown deepened. She fought off the urge to press her fingers to the corners of her mouth, to find if her lips curled in new ways, to check for missing dimples. "I refuse to thank you for this," she said, making no effort to mask her displeasure with courtesy.

"I'll give you reasons to thank me yet, Maddie, if you'll only give me the chance."

She shook her head, regretting ever sharing her given name with him. "Please stop calling me that, I'm not –"

The look he gave her was hard, and sudden. "Aye, you _are_ , lass, and you'd best not forget it. Archer is a wanted woman. Sweet little Maddie is no one."

Anger swelled inside of her. "So I am to be your Maddie, then?" she demanded.

Brynjolf chuckled. "You're to be _our_ Maddie."

"I don't want this."

"We made a deal," he reminded her firmly. Before she had a chance to argue, for argue she meant to do, he held up a hand to show he wasn't done. "Come find me here tomorrow evening, and we'll see about finding some work for you do to."

"What sort of work?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Brynjolf smirked. "You'll find out tomorrow evening, now won't you?"

"What makes you so certain I won't leave Riften tonight?" she asked, pressing her luck now.

"Because you have nowhere else to go," he said, and it was with his abject certainty that all other arguments were chased from her head, and she found herself speechless as he finally opened the door and held it wide open for her.

As she walked out, her chin as high as she could manage in her dejected state, Brynjolf called out to her.

"Oh, and a bit of friendly advice, lass. I'd stop asking so many questions if I were you. Bad for business, you know."

And with that, the door closed behind her, and she was utterly alone.


	5. Business Taken Care Of

The next morning, Brynjolf woke with a smile on his face.

Now, the sad truth was that he could scarce recall a time when he'd not woken already weary. There were few things left to this world that lifted his heart from the normality of its dull, dispassionate existence, and having his instincts pay out was likely nearest to the top of the list. It put some spring in his step, being proven right, even if there wasn't a soul in all of Skyrim who could ever know. He'd given the girl his word, and on his honour as a thief, he wouldn't be going back on it. Not when he'd seen such a show of faith from her. She wasn't going to cut and run, not after last night, and _that_ , he found, was reason enough to keep from crowing.

His much improved mood was noticed by Mercer as they met at midday. It was business as usual around the cistern, and those who weren't away on a job were still abed sleeping off the last one. Nowadays, it was rare enough when the bustle picked up before late afternoon, and this day was no exception. For his part, Brynjolf enjoyed the quiet of the mornings. Divines knew how frustrating it was to concentrate on the numbers over the noise this rabble made when all accounted for. It was a wonder any real business was done at all.

And there, another reason to smile. Really, this was the perfect place to hide the girl, if hiding was what she truly wanted. She would be his little secret, and the excitement of pulling the con right under Mercer's nose was reward enough in itself. The extra coin he'd slipped Galathil for her discretion already felt well spent.

The work the old girl had done was impressive. Subtle, masterful. He'd paid little attention to the conjurer and her craft before, thinking her just one more artisan passing through the Flagon, putting too much store in the fading memory of a busier time in the guild's history and paying for it dearly, soon to leave when the reality, damp and hunger began to sink in. But instead, she'd proven her worth and earned his respect, and all it had cost was a little coin.

He doubted the girl had felt the same when he'd escorted her out last night, but he hoped she'd changed her tune once she'd found herself before a looking glass. She was and was not the same girl who'd spoken so plaintively in the temple. The difference was noticeable, the similarity remarkable. She could have passed as her own sister but for the red of her hair, and no one in the guild would be the wiser as to who she truly was. Of that, he would make certain. But to his delight, what sold it was the indignation he'd stirred up, that little spark he remembered so fondly, a bit of wildfire that had been all but sputtered out when he'd caught sight of her at the inn, him in the shadows and her sighing at the stars.

She was on his mind, this new little spitfire, when he met up with Mercer to go over the accounts, and the guild master had not even opened his ledger before he was commenting on it.

"What's gotten into you?" he asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"A bit of good news," Brynjolf said, playing it close to the chest. "I think I may have found us a new recruit."

Mercer grimaced. "I'm still licking Maven's boots over the trouble the last one caused."

"And here I thought Maven had you doing more than that these days," Brynjolf said with a laugh, careful to hide his disappointment in how quickly he'd touched upon the sore spot Archer had left. Undeniably, it should have been more trouble than it was worth to clean up the mess – if Archer had been anyone else – and Maven's influence in the whole affair had been vital. You couldn't just dump half a dozen dead Thalmor into Lake Honrich and hope that no one would notice.

"Remember who you speak to," Mercer said, but the words held less malice than usual. "I'm curious as to what makes you think this one will be any different?"

Brynjolf smirked. He'd piqued the guild master's interest. His work was already half done.

The next few hours were of little consequence, spent settling accounts and penning notes and letters, and he left the cistern with a deep frown etched onto his face, one that always seemed to grow grimmer as the days and weeks went on.

Mercer had asked again after his troublesome shopkeepers, his eyes dark with displeasure, and Brynjolf's lack of progress on that front had done little to assuage him – yet even the briefest mention of Goldenglow Estate was met with stony silence. Vex's failure – and Brynjolf's misplaced faith – had not been forgotten, and there would be no coaxing Mercer into speaking his mind on the subject. Whatever the guild master planned to do next, Brynjolf would not find out until the moment was upon him, and that was something that did not sit right with him. Not at all.

He retired to the Flagon, to take his supper alone. No one bothered him. Even Delvin kept a safe distance, though Brynjolf was certain he could feel the old thief's eyes burning into him as he concentrated on his meal. The afternoon's work had all but pushed the girl clean out of his head, but as he sat there in the tavern, she crept up on him again, almost like the shadow he knew she could be if she would only set her skittish mind to it. The girl had grit to spare, yet he saw no backbone in her, only that desire to run and hide.

Still, there was something about her – something he could not name, _something_ –

"Oi, Brynjolf," said a voice from behind him. Delvin Mallory, no longer content to keep quiet. "Could I get a word?"

Brynjolf smirked and sat back in his chair as Delvin joined his table. "I have a feeling you're about to have several. What's on your mind, my friend?"

"Well," said the old thief, as if he were still mulling it over, when Brynjolf knew full well that was not the case. "I'd like it if you could speak to some of the boys for a start. If we don't find someone to run these jobs soon, clients are going to start looking elsewhere."

"Aye, we can't have that, now can we?"

"Try talking with Rune," Delvin pressed. It was a rare occasion when Delvin Mallory was anything but at complete ease, but something in his tone was harried, and Brynjolf didn't like it. "Lad could use the coin, and I could stand to get some of these clients off my back."

Brynjolf nodded. "I'll see what I can do. Was that all?"

The older thief smiled, shadows clinging to the deep creases that appeared in his grizzled face. "Not unless you're going to tell me why old Galathil came collecting this morning. Said you owed her the coin. Quite a bit of it."

"She did me a service," was all Brynjolf said.

Delvin laughed. "Well, you don't look no prettier, if you ask me."

"It's a good thing no one asked you then, eh?" He was hard pressed to keep the smile from his own face. Never let it be said that Delvin Mallory had the sense to keep his nose where it belonged. "I'll have a quiet word with Rune tonight and send him your way."

"I appreciate that," said Delvin, "now if we could only do something about – wait, what's this, then?" The way his eyes lit up left no question as to what – no, as to _whom –_ they had landed on.

This time, Brynjolf found that his smile was a little harder to hide as he stood to take in the sight of the girl, whose pale face and strange new dark eyes greeted his with an air of solemnity one rarely saw in the Flagon. The hood of her weather-worn cloak was pulled up over her hair, but as unruly as she was, a few tendrils had slipped free to brush her cheeks, catching the torchlight to gleam like fire.

"I wasn't certain I'd ever see you again," he said quietly.

She blushed, as if remembering. Remembering another job, another night, a favour, a question, a kiss. He remembered all too well, her guarded eyes, her impatient tongue, and the drape of Stormcloak blue across her breast like a brand; rebel, traitor, daughter of Skyrim.

But she wasn't truly, was she? Otherwise, why would she be there, desperate to disappear?

"I don't know why I bothered," she said slowly. She glanced around, dark eyes taking in all there was to see, just as she had once before. Her time away had not softened her opinion. "This place is a mess."

Delvin gave a low whistle. "I'll leave this one to you, eh, Bryn?" He walked away, laughing to himself.

Brynjolf smirked, and held out a chair for Archer – no, _Maddie_ , he reminded himself, and best not to forget it. The girl sat warily, watching him like a hawk as he situated himself across from her. "If you were expecting a palace," he said, well aware of his passel of eavesdroppers hanging on every word, "then maybe you're in the wrong line of work."

She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it just as quickly. He found himself remembering fondly that temperamental little mouth, the way it had pressed, warm and demanding, against his own, and he smugly folded his arms over his chest.

"Our methods," he continued, "involve secrecy – and discretion."

She nodded and bit her lip, thoroughly chastised. But not bowed, he realized as their eyes met, no, not bowed at all.

"Now, if you're done bellyaching like a child," he said, waving Vekel over, "how about handling a few deadbeats for me?"

Maddie waited until the barkeep had come and gone, eyeing the mug that had been set before her but not touching it. He'd half drained his by the time she spoke up. "Deadbeats?" she asked, as if she didn't quite understand his meaning, still unsure of what she'd gotten herself into. "What did they do?"

He smiled, but it was only a grim show of teeth. "They owe our organization some serious coin," he said, stretching the truth a fair bit to draw her in. No harm in it that he saw. "And they've decided not to pay." Aye, it was not the whole story. He left out Aringoth, the unwitting helm of this little rebellion; he left out Goldenglow, he left out Vex. The shopkeepers were the issue at hand, and so he told her only what she needed to know. He'd promised to protect her in exchange for a few jobs run, and he'd meant it. He had no intention of pulling her any deeper into guild business than he had to. After all, in spite of the history they shared – or perhaps _because_ of the history they shared – he was not yet sure if it was wise to trust her.

"What do you want _me_ to do about it?" she asked, her voice full of doubt.

"What I want," he said, taking a moment to watch her squirm, "is for you to explain to them the error of their ways."

"I don't –" She swallowed hard and glanced around once more. Here she was before him, this girl who'd marched her way into his city, who had demanded his help and begrudgingly exchanged favours, who'd cut down half a dozen Thalmor in the narrow, dark tunnels of the Ratway, and yet _now,_ she sat before him, quailing at the very idea of confronting a few stubborn shopkeepers. He might have smiled again, might have laughed, if not for the eyes and ears on them. She seemed to come to the same sort of conclusion, though whether it was the state of the Flagon or the eyes that were watching her in return, he didn't know, but something knocked a little courage into her, and she sat up all the straighter, and said, "All right, sounds good. Who are they?"

That time, he did laugh, and he thought, for just a fleeting moment, that he caught a reflection of that laugh in her newly dark eyes. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light... and more the fool was he, for thinking that this was going to be easier than he'd imagined.

* * *

...

* * *

As night fell, Brynjolf made his way up to the streets of Riften.

It almost seemed beyond believing that he'd walked the same path only the night before. An age had passed to his uneasy heart, and his mind had lost track of the hours, but time was now scarce beyond reckoning, and the haze of moonlight that broke through the dense mist that covered the city was the same as it always had been, turning his city into a city of ghosts, and he was but a shadow, never there and already gone.

He crossed the market, alone and unafraid. The guards let him be, and nodded in passing.

The dooryard of the Bee and Barb was empty and cold, a single candle burning in its lamp. The feeble light did nothing to cut through the curling mist, and he stared up at the inn's second story with unabashed curiosity. Like most of Riften, the inn boasted few windows, as if looking out onto the streets would offend its patrons, to see what dealings went on after the sun went down, and of those few, the curved milky glass was dark. Perhaps the hour was later than he'd thought.

Somewhere behind those timber walls, Maddie slept – or perhaps she was as sleepless as he, staring off into nothingness, her mind and her heart racing as she faced down her demons alone in the dark. The girl was full of secrets and indecision, hiding from him as much as from what had chased her to Riften. He did not expect truth from her lips, though he was of half a mind to ask after it anyway, if only to hear the lies she would spin for him, gossamer threads that tore with the slightest questioning.

And from those torn threads, there were truths to be gleaned. He did not fancy her kind of heartache visiting Riften again. These streets had seen enough trouble of late, and he had never liked trouble that was not of his making.

It crossed his mind to enter the inn and climb the steps to her room, but he dismissed the thought just as quickly. It would be no good to send Keerava into an agitated state over his presence if Maddie had not paid her a visit yet. Instead, he turned quietly and slipped across the canal to disappear into the temple courtyard, to return to the cistern and his own bed.

He slept; he woke. Perhaps the sun dawned bright that morning, perhaps it did not dawn at all on that very last day of Sun's Dusk. It seemed appropriate.

It was near to midday when she found him in the Flagon. She'd left her hood down, and her cheeks still flared with the kiss of winter's cold. She did not greet him; in fact, she said nothing at all, only dropped the small purse of coins on the table. Three hundred septims, a secondary debt. Word had already reached him by then, and he'd almost wished he'd been there with her, to see Haelga's pretty face drained of all colour, to hear the sound of shattering ceramic that had surely filled the Prawn like sweet music.

"Job's done," she said as she sat across from him. Her face was an impassive mask.

"And you even brought the gold," he added with a grin. He picked up the purse and quickly made it disappear. "Best of all, you did it clean. I like that."

She tucked in the corners of her mouth, watching and waiting.

He leaned in closer, his grin disappearing as quickly as the coins. "Dumping bodies and keeping the guards quiet can be expensive. But that wouldn't concern you in the slightest, now would it, lass?" And for even for an instant, he was certain he saw a crack appear in that mask she wore, and what he saw beneath vexed him to no end. He raised an eyebrow at her, expecting her to say something, anything, but instead she only shook her head and took a deep breath, and that straying vulnerability was gone. In its place was returned the woman she tried to be, not Maddie, but Archer, and for the life of him, he could not wait until the day came when she reconciled the two. Only then would he know, truly know –

"So what's next, then?" she asked, almost sounding like she was ready to know, almost sounding like she cared.

Mara bless her little heart.

He sighed then, twisted his mouth to watch her as if he were deep in thought. "Judging by how well you handled those shopkeepers," he said, smirking, "I'd say you've done more than just prove yourself." He glanced around and caught more than one pair of eyes looking their way. Each in turn skipped away, some guilty and some reluctant. He doubted the same could be said of their ears. He nodded to Maddie once more, sitting so plainly on the edge of her seat. "We need people like you in our outfit."

A pause, and then –

"I'm in," she said, her voice so quiet he scarcely heard her. "A promise is a promise." But the words were there, and they were more than enough.

"That's the spirit," he said, standing. He grinned down at her, and her sweet face was lost in his shadow, yet she looked up at him, expectant, unflinching. He held out a hand, and laughed quietly to himself when she did not take it, when she stood with all the dignity she could muster and scarcely came up to his shoulder. She followed after him, her footsteps making hardly a sound. She was close on his heels when he ducked into the stone alcove, but she paused as he led her away from the entrance to the Warrens, and she stopped altogether when he unlocked the storage cabinet and opened the secret door.

"Something wrong, lass?"

"Nothing good ever comes from passing through a hidden door," she said.

He chuckled as he stepped back to allow her to enter ahead of him. He then closed the door behind them, effectively shutting out those in the Flagon who would listen in, and giving the two of them all the privacy they cared to have. In that narrow stone corridor, somewhere between the proverbial rock and hard place, they stood in silence as he gave her a moment to settle her nerves and gather her thoughts. There was still one more test for her to face before they were in the clear, and he needed her to be prepared.

"Maddie," he said softly. She looked up at him, her eyes dark as a storm. "I'm about to take you to the guild master. A little more confidence would serve you well."

She laughed at that, a cold and hollow sound. "I'm not cut out for this. Thievery, _extortion_ –"

"Oh, but you are," he said, thinking of her successes, those he'd witnessed with his own eyes, and those rumours that still drifted in on the wind, whispers of the Thalmor Embassy and all that had happened there. "Larceny is in your blood. I see the telltale signs of a practised thief." He smiled at her, wondering all the while why he was trying to reassure her, wondering why he _cared_. He put a hand on her shoulder, pleased when she didn't flinch away. "I think you'll do more than just fit in around here."

_Aye, sweet girl, I mean it,_ he thought as she looked doubtfully up at him, _you could go far with us. This could be home, if you'd only let it._ But these words of comfort never left his lips. Instead, he only gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and asked, "Are you ready?"

She nodded. "As I'll ever be." Yet he only made it a few paces toward the door of the cistern before she called out. "Wait," she said, and he turned back toward her. "Before we go, there is something I have to ask."

"What's on your mind?"

"I spent more than a little time today getting to know Riften," she said slowly, as if she were trying to soften some coming blow. "Word on the street is that your organization isn't doing very well. Is it true?"

Brynjolf managed a smile for her, forced as it was. "Aye, it's true that we've hit a rough patch lately," he said, shrugging his shoulders in a dismissive manner, though her words hit a sore spot, and the ache was acute. "It's nothing to be concerned about. I'll tell you what." And here he paused to give her what he meant as a steady, meaningful look. "You keep making us coin, and I'll worry about everything else."

"Everything else," she repeated, disbelieving.

"Is that fair enough?"

She hesitated, looked to the door over his shoulder, where her future and her salvation awaited, and then down at her feet. The toe of her soft-soled boot scuffed the grimy stone floor. A sigh escaped her, tremulous in its concession, and when she looked up at him once more, he almost didn't recognize her for all the determination in those dark, different eyes.

"Fair enough," she said, and she followed after him without another word.


	6. The Guild Master

Brynjolf called this place the Cistern.

Perhaps, had things been different, she would have come to call it home.

The first thing that she noticed was the cold, a damp cold that crept right into the bones and made itself at home there. She shivered as the door to the Flagon closed heavily behind her. Her breath came out as a dragon's, steaming on the night. The image did little to quell her knotting stomach. She bit down on her lip to keep it from trembling, but it was a losing battle.

She was close behind Brynjolf as he led her down a stone corridor that opened up into a great cavernous vault of a room that was, in fact, a cistern, where great flows of water poured into a central pool, and all around it were scattered the trappings of this sort of life, rickety beds and old chests, practice dummies full of arrows. Steam rose in soft billows from the water, giving the whole place an eerie quality that sent another shiver down Maddie's spine. A deep calming breath seared her lungs with bitter cold, and she thought for a moment of Windhelm and its endless snows, of Hjerim and the gentle glow of the hearth, of the unforgiving ancient stone of the Palace of the Kings, where the great bear sat upon his father's throne, his arms strong, his will fierce and the heat of him enough to burn her to nothing.

Yet here, at least, she was no man's pet, no tool to be used, no queen to be coveted and kept. There was no desire in her for that life, no matter the sway the mere memory of Ulfric still held over her, mind and body and soul. She would rather this cold, this dark and this damp. Better to freeze in the wake of the truth than to wrap herself in the softest and warmest of lies.

Here, she would know the lies for what they were. All of them were liars, she knew this as she looked around and saw the Cistern bustling with activity and life. There would be no convincing herself otherwise. Liars and cheats and thieves, hidden beneath hoods that masked their faces and marked their purpose. But she knew too much now to be fooled so easily. Trust was no longer a luxury she could afford. After all, what was it that Brynjolf had told her in the temple?

" _Trust is not something thieves have in abundance,"_ he'd said beneath Mara's sorrowful gaze, and she believed him now, wholeheartedly and without restraint, but belief was not the same as trust, and as he turned to make sure she still followed, she could not bring herself to smile at him even had her life depended on it. Perhaps now it did.

He smiled at her, however, that same cocksure grin that made her certain he meant to take her for everything she had. It might have worried her, had she anything left to lose.

"Come along then, lass," said Brynjolf, that smile never faltering, "we mustn't keep the guild master waiting."

If his words had held any sense of foreboding then, Maddie was oblivious to it. Later on, she wouldn't understand how she could have been so blind, and in her weakest moments, she would come to blame it on the cold, the uncertainty, and the fear, but then – _then_ , Divines help her, she hadn't known.

She could feel the eyes on her as she hurried after Brynjolf, whose steady, confident gait was difficult to match. She'd counted scarce a handful of people as they had entered, but news spread quickly here beneath the streets of Riften, and soon more people drifted out of their hiding to get a good look at the newcomer. Most were men, but one was a woman Maddie thought she might recognize, that dark hair and disapproving glare almost familiar. She did not dare to stare back, and kept her eyes on Brynjolf's back as she followed him across the narrow walkway that spanned over the cistern.

On the central platform where the four walkways met, a dark, imposing figure was cut against the soft light that filtered down through the rusted grates above. His hair might once have been black, but it was so streaked with grey now that Maddie was not entirely certain. It was slicked back from his face, giving him quite a severe look, showing off a hawkish nose and hard, grizzled jaw. What startled her most, however, was that he did not even look at Brynjolf, that his eyes found hers and anchored there, bearing down on her until she felt sure she would crack beneath the pressure of that steely gaze.

And it was in this way that Maddie first met Mercer Frey.

"Mercer," said Brynjolf, his smile shifting in some small, imperceptible way, all of them so completely unaware then that their world had changed forever, "this is Maddie, the one I was talking about. Our new recruit." He gave a dismissive wave toward her, and she felt a stirring of annoyance at his constant disregard of her in front of others, when it was at his behest that she went to all this trouble in the first place.

For his part, Mercer Frey did not seem impressed with her in the slightest, though his eyes raked over her again, scrutinizing her from the tips her boots to the clasp of her cloak, before settling again on her face. If she'd had any warmth left in her, she might have flushed from the intensity of such a thorough look.

"This had better not be another waste of the guild's resources, Brynjolf," said the guild master, and even his voice was hard and utterly without pity. He barely had a glance to spare for his colleague; he seemed only to have eyes for Madeline. His sneer was plain as he spoke. "Before we continue, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: if you play by the rules, you walk away rich."

So it was to be straight to business then. No one in Skyrim seemed to have a moment to spare for pleasantries. Mercer raised an eyebrow, perhaps expecting some sort of assent from her, but she said nothing, and did nothing. He nodded at her then, as if perhaps that was all he had expected from her. "If you break our rules, you lose your share. No debates, no discussions. You do what we say, when we say."

His words were meant to be menacing, to keep her in line, of that she was positive, but to her, they really didn't matter in the slightest. Wind in her ears. She had no interest in shares, in loot or in profit. All she wanted to do was hide, and while Ulfric's greedy eyes were turned toward the Reach as he awaited her return, and Delphine would not risk coming out into the open to track her down after the disastrous encounter with the Thalmor right here in Riften, there was truly no better place than this – or so she'd thought when she'd entered the city. Now, standing in this dreadful cold with Brynjolf's knowing smirk and Mercer Frey's oppressive glare, she really could not be all that certain anymore.

Mercer's voice cut into her thoughts. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, I understand," Maddie said, forcing herself to nod.

"We'll see," said Mercer as he walked away, as if he did not believe her at all. Madeline was used to being doubted, but she was not there to prove herself to Mercer Frey. All she wanted to do was keep her head down until it was safe to smuggle herself out of Skyrim. But with the Stormcloaks watching the roads in and out of Cyrodiil, and the Reachmen terrorizing the heights that led back to High Rock, she might be stuck for a very, very long time.

"Mercer, aren't you forgetting something?" Brynjolf said.

Mercer seemed to think the same thing, as he begrudgingly stopped and turned toward them once more. "Hmm? Oh yes," he said slowly through clenched teeth, and his unforgiving eyes burned into hers. "Since Brynjolf assures me you'll be nothing but an asset to us, you're in."

Maddie glanced toward Brynjolf, and he gave her the slightest of nods, barely there – or at least, she thought he did. Perhaps it was only her imagination. When she looked back to Mercer, he was watching the two of them closely. Whatever he saw, he shook his head to dismiss it and turned away, and as he left them there, headed toward a cluttered desk flanked by a pair of empty shelves, she heard him mutter, "Welcome to the Thieves Guild."

And with that, it was done. Once again, she'd signed her life away to a cause she was not sure she believed in, for reasons so ambiguous even she did not truly understand them. One day, she would stop... one day, she would _learn..._

Madeline turned toward Brynjolf, expecting some sort of smile or recognition, hoping for it, but he wasn't watching her at all. His eyes were on Mercer's retreat, his brow dark with concentration, his mouth turned down into a frown. He looked – _unsettled._ It was the first time she had seen him anything but entirely assured; his usual arrogance was gone and in its place was an uncertainty that mirrored what she felt in her own heart every single day. But the moment was fleeting, for when he glanced over and realized he was being watched, it all disappeared like candle smoke and returned was the confidence man with the grin like a hungry wolf.

"Welcome to the family, lass," he said, his voice so low she could scarce hear him over the rush of the water. "It's time for you to start acting the part. Can you do that for me?"

Could she do that – could she at all, let alone for him? She found herself nodding as she looked around the Cistern, taking in the water and the grime and the decay, and the faces, so many new faces, all watching her and seeing a strange face, the one she hardly recognized when she dared to glance in the mirror, fresh and pretty and scarcely what could be called unforgettable.

"Now," continued Brynjolf, his hand brushing the small of her back as he guided her in the direction he meant for them to go, which was back the way they'd come over the arched stone walkway. The touch was fleeting, and his hand fell away as she went ahead of him. "I'm expecting you to make us a lot of coin, Maddie, so don't disappoint me."

His tone was teasing, but she had a feeling that his words were not. It was not the first time in her life she would have to work to earn her keep, and she was no stranger to hard work, but this – this hardly seemed like work at all, though what else she would call it, she didn't know. This was business to him, it wasn't a game, though he seemed to play it like one, a game where the odds were always in his favour.

_Well_ , she thought, frowning, _two can play at that._

"So how do I earn my share of the spoils?" she asked boldly, glancing at him over her shoulder, and he rewarded her with a crooked smile.

"Simple," he said, that grin never diminishing, "you do as you're told and you keep your blade clean. We can't turn a profit by killing."

It almost shamed her, the relief that swept over her then, and she tried to keep her face from showing her regret at such swift and sudden remembrance, the memory of smoke and sweat so strong that her eyes burned, but even in that moment the tears would not come as she heard the bear's deep voice rumbling through her head, his insatiable thirst, the blood on his hands. Blood she had spilled in his name. Easily hidden, but not easily forgotten.

No, never forgotten.

"Did you even hear me, lass?"

She stopped walking, and turned to face him. "I –"

He chuckled to himself as he stepped around her. "I said that you should speak to Delvin Mallory and Vex in the Flagon. You saw them when you came in. They know their way around this place and they'll be able to send some extra jobs your way. Oh, and while you're there, talk to Tonilia. She'll set you up with your new armour."

Maddie kept her mouth shut as she followed dutifully after him. She didn't like the sound of any of this. She'd come to Riften hoping to shut herself behind that lovely impenetrable door of Esbern's, where no force in the world could touch her if she so chose. Yet here she was, up to her neck in favours and trouble _again,_ and every time she opened her mouth, every time she tried to argue her way out of it, she only sunk deeper and deeper. She wanted no part of this guild or their jobs. She wanted out already, and she had scarcely gotten _in._

"This is you," said Brynjolf, stopping before an old bed that had seen more use than she cared to think about. A chest sat to one side and a small end table to the other, and on the end table were stacked a number of dusty old books. "A little light reading for you," he added with a grin when he saw where her eyes had gone.

"Thank you," she mumbled, almost without thought, her courtesies still almost a part of her. Smile sweetly, hold your tongue, and obey. The lessons of her childhood that chased her no matter how far she ran from Evermore and the family name. Brynjolf nodded and made to leave her, but she couldn't – "Brynjolf, wait," she said quickly, and he turned to look at her, his green eyes still guarded and dark. "I mean it. Thank you. For this. For all of it."

He looked taken aback by her sudden show of gratitude. "You're welcome, lass," he said slowly, as if he were not used to such from the likes of her, and for once there was no smile from him, no smirk, no knowing look. He said nothing more, only walked away quickly as if he could not wait to get away from her.

Had things been different, this might have worried her, might have made her think she'd done something wrong, but the events of the past few days were catching up quickly, and her tired mind could not spare a thought as to why her words would unsettle him so.

Instead, she could think only of the bed that was now hers. It creaked uncertainly as she sat down upon it, and with that sinking, with a shudder and a sigh, all the breath went out of her and she feared she might drown in the tears she desperately tried to contain. But as she watched Brynjolf retreat to the Flagon, the next breath came easier to her, and the next, and the next, and soon that weight on her chest dragging her down had passed and her loneliness did not seem so unbearable.

No, in that moment she was almost free. Free of her destiny, the ambition of others, the hate that would tear Skyrim asunder. And in that moment, before it passed into the heartbeat of the next, she knew a strange kind of peace, one that she feared she would never find again.

When she looked up again, she could no longer see Brynjolf. It was she who was being watched. Her eyes met Mercer Frey's from across the cistern, her peace shattered with a shiver that ran through the very bones of her, the coldness of that glare overwhelming.

She was the first to look away.

* * *

...

* * *

There was to be no sleep for her that night.

In the morning, her eyes opened to the dim glow of torchlight and the glistening of stone, and though she was deep in the cold, miserable ground, she knew that it was scarcely past dawn. A habit born long before she'd set foot in Skyrim, and reinforced during her time as a Stormcloak, her body did not know how to sleep past sunrise.

And so she rose from her bed like a restless spirit, only to realize she was the only one awake.

Shivering, she pulled the threadbare blanket up around her shoulders as she sat cross-legged on the bed, looking around the Cistern with more curiosity than her shyness had allowed the night before. With no one to glare at her, to leer or smirk at her, she could watch to her heart's content, though at the early hour there was not much at all to see. Fewer than half the beds were empty, and she supposed those to whom they belonged were out on one of the jobs that Brynjolf had tried to entice her with. Jobs that she would be expected to take in due time.

She tried very hard not to think about that.

Once when she was small, a thief had been caught in the shop that was owned by her _grandmere_. Thinking on it as she did now, she realized he must not have been a very good thief, for he'd stumbled into something in the pitch black of the crowded shop, awakening the whole of her family sleeping in the small apartment upstairs. It was one of her uncles that had roused the cry to summon the guards as he'd bounded down the stairs in naught but his nightshirt.

In her bed, all of six years old, Madeline had quaked with fear, her eyes still blurry with sleep and dreams not long shaken off, until her _maman_ had come to light the candle by her bed and sit with her through all the unpleasantness that had followed. Clearly, so clearly, she still remembered all of it – the crash from the shop below as her uncles blundered about in the dark, the curses of her _grandmere_ as she paced the hall, the shouts of the guardsmen who'd answered her uncle's call, and then the deadly quiet that had followed.

The next morning, she had been sent outside before the shop opened, brush and bucket in hand, to scrub the blood from the cobblestones. She remembered how the water had run red before she was done, how she'd watched as it drained down toward the grate like a little river. She'd ruined her apron that morning, and had received a thorough scolding.

It seemed silly now, thinking about that ruined apron. She'd borne the brunt of their anger that day, as she had most of the days of her life, her very existence an affront to their propriety. She was their half-blooded shame, she who had never had the decency to _act_ ashamed. Their concern with the thief had always been over the lost goods, confiscated – pocketed – by the very guards who had come to their aid. A second thought had never been given to the life of the young man who had stolen them in the first place.

And now here she was, putting her trust into a thief, her faith, her _life._ Truly, if she had anything left to her name, she'd already given to him. Was he a master thief, to have gained all of this from her in so short a time, or was she simply a terrible mark?

She waited until her stomach began to rumble before she finally left the bed and gave herself a good stretch before heading to the Flagon to see about some breakfast. She hoped the proprietor rose earlier than the rest of this rabble. The sound of snoring was all that could be heard over the constant rush of the water.

Thankfully, she was not disappointed, and found the barkeep, Vekel, cleaning mugs behind the long counter. All but one of the tables was empty, and this was occupied by a middle-aged thief who tossed her a cheeky smile as she sat down as far away from him as she possibly could. She was not the least bit interested in making new friends.

A plate was dropped in front of her. Cheese and bread; an apple, quartered. She looked up to thank Vekel but he'd already turned his back on her. It was just as well. She didn't think she could take one more scornful look around here, not this early in the morning. She began to eat. The bread was still warm. Sadly, she realized the last time she'd had a hot meal was in Rorikstead. The boy, Erik, had held the bowl to her lips while she drank hungrily, the old healer Jouane's magic still working its way through her bones, mending her flesh but not her spirit. And what she'd seen in the boy's eyes made her feel ashamed, so ashamed. Affection, admiration, _envy_...

"Well, then," said a voice that penetrated her thoughts. She glanced up with a gasp to find the old thief sliding into the chair opposite her, the same cheeky grin on his stubbled face. "You're the one all the fuss is about, eh?"

"I beg your pardon?" she asked. She realized belatedly that she ought not look so surprised. She was a thief now. She was meant to belong there. The smile she gave in return was crooked all the same.

"Delvin Mallory," he said, leaving her question blatantly unanswered. He reached a hand across the table, and cautiously she shook it. "You must be Maddie. Cistern's buzzing with talk of you."

"Oh?" she asked, unable to hide her disappointment. "And what are they saying?"

He laughed heartily. "Not how this game is played, dove, but don't go fretting. Keep your ears open, and you'll figure it out in no time. Now, how would you like to help me with a little problem I've got on my hands, hmm?"

Though she could not have cared less what dull task this old thief could possibly have for an unproven recruit like her, she had to remind herself that she was not entirely unproven, that she'd settled a few debts and gained the attention of the guild master, and that Brynjolf himself had told her to seek this man out for work. It took her a moment to force the words she knew were needed. "What do you need?" she asked.

"Was a few cases of Honningbrew coming in to the Bee 'n Barb what a client wanted to make disappear," said Delvin, leaning back in his chair and squaring her with casual appraisal. "Shipment finally came through; lifted it off the caravan this morning myself. Now all I need is for someone to head topside and make it disappear from the books."

Maddie frowned. She was a merchant's daughter; she'd seen her fair share of sketchy bookkeeping. "And what am I to replace it with?"

"Nothing." Delvin flashed her a stained grin. "Leave it empty. Client wants that old dragon taught a lesson. Think you can manage?"

She tried her best not to breathe a sigh of relief. After her repeated run-ins with Riften's shopkeepers through Brynjolf's questionable tutelage, playing with a few numbers on the sly didn't seem all that challenging. After all, she'd been instructed to take on some extra work.

"Consider it done," she said, sounding more confident than she felt.

"There's a good girl," said Delvin, already rising out of his chair. "Now do me a favour and go see Tonilia, eh? Don't need Mercer breathing down my neck all because you're out running a job for me without the proper attire." He gave her a wink and went to go speak with the lithe blonde she had not seen skulking in a corner until that very moment. Not wanting to seem rude, she sighed and stood up, making to dig a few coins out of her pocket for the meal.

"No need," said Vekel as the money hit the table. He had been watching her from behind the bar. "Board's paid for so long as you're bringing in coin – and staying in Mercer's good graces."

"And how does one do that?" Madeline asked bitterly.

Vekel only laughed.

Later on, she would realize that she never did find an answer to that question.


	7. Blood and Honey

It was mid-morning when Brynjolf finally woke, and when he stumbled out of his bed and walked into the Cistern, the girl was already gone. Her bed was cold and empty.

He couldn't say that he was surprised. She had a little bit of soldier in her, after all, if that bloodstained length of blue linen she still held onto was any indication. Buried at the bottom of the patched old rucksack she had carried in over her shoulder, it was like some dirty little secret she was trying to hide. Better to burn it than to bury it, he could have told her. Secrets like that don't stay kept.

Especially in a den of thieves.

Mara only knew how he was meant to keep _her_ then. The very thought of it made him laugh and turn his eyes heavenward, but all he saw was water and stone and a century's worth of filth. He'd find no answers there. The Divines had no love for men like him. It was a lesson he'd learned early, and hard. A lesson that still woke him up nights, sweating and shaking, when the snows were deep and the wind howled across the Rift.

He was quick to push that guilt from his mind. A lifetime ago, that mess. He needed to focus on the here, the now. He needed to focus on the promise he'd made the girl.

Perhaps some lessons were not so readily learned.

Brynjolf kept himself busy in the training room that morning, staying far away from the others to keep their troubles and their distractions from fogging up his head. A level head for clear thinking, one of the rules he tried to uphold for himself. The others around the Cistern would do well to take a leaf from that book, but he knew better than to try preaching it at the table. Pearls before swine, his old mam had been fond of saying, usually after he'd sassed her but before the lash caught him across the backside.

He often wondered what words of wisdom she would have had for him now, if she'd lived long enough to see the path he'd chosen, the decisions he'd made. It was not a comforting thought. Arkay keep her close.

Of course, that wasn't to say that the others were content to leave him be. There wasn't an hour's peace to be had from the trivialities of his guildmates. For every piece of good news, there was twice as much bad. Petty squabbles over coin, over space, over jobs. Nothing but complaints and discontent found their miserable way to his ears. It was like trying to wrangle a passel of unruly children, and he was loathe to take a switch to all of them.

The only one who stayed out of his hair was Rarnis, but that in itself was nothing new. Scarcely a word came from the poor bastard these days. He took no jobs and he didn't train. He hadn't brought in a single coin in months, but no one knew quite what to do with his sorry hide. Most of his time was spent circling the cistern, and it seemed all his hours were to be whiled away contemplating at the water's edge. What answers could be gleaned from beneath that murky surface, Brynjolf was certain he didn't know, but he still found himself wondering as he watched the Breton stare into the shallows, his own questions mounting and the answers far beyond his ken. No one else paid Rarnis any mind anymore – to the rest, it was as if he wasn't even there, and Brynjolf had a sneaking suspicion that Rarnis preferred it that way.

Late into the afternoon, Brynjolf finally emerged from the training room, stretching his arms wearily over his head. The Cistern had begun to clear out as those who had work ahead of them set out. A thief's best travelling was done in the haze of twilight, when the gate guards were tired and blind to aught but their supper.

Truth be told, it did his heart good to see so many out on the job that night. The Flagon had been much too crowded of late, and it was to the tavern he headed now, ready for a little amiable conversation and a warm meal to fill his belly. Aye, and a pint or two to put a thrum in his veins, that ghost of a reminder of why he kept at this life long after he'd lost the thrill for it. There were some days, days like this one, when he thought himself ready to take one of Vex's bit jobs himself, eager for the chance to stretch his legs and breathe the free air beyond the walls of stagnant Riften.

The guild, however, would not run itself; he was tangled in the heart of all matters and unable to pull away. It was best to leave such things to the footpads beneath him. It was a sorry state of affairs, but there was no getting away from it. His life and livelihood was tied up here.

When he entered the Flagon, he found it close to empty, much the way he preferred it. Delvin sat at his usual table, buried in letters and ledgers, and Vex was nowhere to be seen. Tonilia sat at the bar, whilst Vekel stood behind, their heads together and sly, secretive smiles on both their faces. And up on the gallery, half-hidden in the shadows, was Galathil, someone he had no desire to see. True enough she'd done him a solid favour without cause, and he would never doubt her discretion in the matter, but something about that night still unsettled him deeply. The words she'd spoken to him after she was done with the girl, her eyes knowing and without pity.

" _That one has too much of the Reach in her to be trusted. She will bring you and your guild nothing but ruin and despair."_

Ominous words, to be sure, and spoken quite out of turn. He'd said nothing, turned his back on her and her tricks of illusion, and he'd walked away with the girl, she who was now strange of face and familiar of step. What did a little witchblood matter to him, truly? Aye, Maddie liked her secrets, that much was certain, but who among his company of thieves was not the same, chased to shadow by their hidden shames and sordid histories? What did blood matter when it was ability that showed true?

His thoughts stayed with Galathil as he sat down at the table nearest the Cistern. It soured his mood, though he'd not felt too rosy to begin with, and he waved Vekel away when the man asked after the dryness of his throat. There was no drowning this away.

As ever, though, Delvin was not to be deterred. It did not take long for him to saunter over, his owlish face alight with curiosity.

"What's got you all knotted up, eh? You should be kicking up your heels."

"And why is that, I wonder?" Brynjolf asked, feigning interest.

"That new girl of yours," said Delvin. Despite himself, Brynjolf looked up to find the old thief flashing his familiar grin. "She's a real find. All business. Makes our boys look like amateurs, I don't mind saying. Mercer's going to like this one, she sticks around long enough."

Brynjolf truly doubted as much, remembering the darkness that had grown in Mercer's eyes of late. But something else about what Delvin had said troubled him. "And just what do you mean by that? She's one of us now, and isn't like to go anywhere."

Delvin shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in his chair as if he had not a care in the world, but the crook of his eyebrow told a different tale. "She's on the run from something," he said finally.

It was Brynjolf's turn to shrug, an indifference he did not feel. "Most here are. Your point?"

"My point is she don't look like she's done running. Got that flighty look about her, and no mistake."

"Aye," Brynjolf said, unable to disagree, "she's a skittish one at that."

"Well, there's naught to be done but wait and see," said Delvin as his grin returned, "but she keeps on as she is, and she'll be teaching everyone around here a thing or two about how to do their jobs and do 'em proper."

"Even you, my friend?" Brynjolf asked.

"Even me," chuckled Delvin. "Ah, speak of the daedra, here she is now."

Brynjolf glanced over his shoulder to see Maddie coming in from the Cistern. Becomingly buckled and as pretty as she was pale, she was finally wearing their trademarked leathers. A look of concern was on her face, peeking out from deep beneath her hood.

"Hello there, lass," he said as she came round the table, "would you care to join us? Old Delvin here was just singing your praises."

"Here now, I was doing no such thing," said Delvin, with a smirk and a wink.

"Thank you, but no," she said, ever mindful of her courtesies, yet she was positively anxious, he could read it in every inch of her body. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mercer asked to see us, Brynjolf." Her eyes flicked to Delvin, and then back to him. "Right now."

"What's he want with us, then?" Brynjolf mused aloud. "He didn't say?"

She shook her head. "Not to me."

Heaving a sigh, he pushed away from the table. "Fair enough. Lead the way, lass," he said, rapping his knuckles on the scrubbed tabletop as he stood. He followed her from the Flagon, making sure to close the secret door behind him. Shadows leapt along the walls of the narrow stone alcove, and the only sound was the scrape of their echoing footsteps. It was only then, certain they were alone, that he asked her, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said shortly, words clipped, shoulders rigid. A lie if he'd ever heard one, but he could not press the issue when she kept so many steps ahead of him, out of arm's reach and purposefully so. She had the door to the Cistern open before he could say another word, and then there were eyes on them, and he could say no more. Together, they made their way to the central platform where Mercer stood waiting for them, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his characteristic grimace on his face.

"Good, you're finally here," he said, his steely eyes cutting toward Brynjolf like the slash of a dagger. "I don't pay you to sit around the Flagon all day, Brynjolf. I expect you to be around when I need you."

Brynjolf was knocked speechless to be reprimanded so, and in front of the newest member of the guild no less. Perhaps it was best for him that the words had been taken clean from him, such was the indignation that rose in his throat like bile, and he was hard-pressed to swallow it down. He took a breath before he answered, meeting Mercer's gaze, unflinching.

"You pay me to keep this place running," he said, his tone light, far lighter than he felt. "Seems to me that I do an admirable job."

"That remains to be seen. There are still important matters to deal with. Or had you forgotten?" Mercer smirked, and his eyes shifted to Maddie, standing in Brynjolf's shadow. "I think it's time we put her _expertise_ to the test."

"Wait a moment," said Brynjolf, suspicious of the scorn in the guild master's voice, "you're not talking about Goldenglow, are you? Even our little Vex couldn't get in." He thought back to the night in the cellar of the meadery, the blood at her temple, the cloying stench of simmering honey, and the daunting shadow of Maul standing guard over all. He turned to look at Maddie, his walking contradiction, and a coldness ran through him that he could not ignore.

"I seem to recall your boast that she possesses an aptitude for our line of work," said Mercer, but there was not a part of him that sounded as though he truly believed it. "Now is her chance to prove it."

Maddie looked at Brynjolf, close to quailing. She opened her mouth to speak, as if she meant to argue, but seemed to think better of it, and that sweet mouth closed again just as quickly. Her face darkened, and her eyes, so accusing, burned into his for but a moment before she turned away.

With a jerk of his head, Mercer bade them to follow, and wordlessly, they went. His desk was scattered with papers. Brynjolf's eyes landed on a hastily drawn-up layout of the Goldenglow compound, marked all over with red ink. It was this that Mercer picked up as he stepped around his desk, and he handed it directly to Maddie.

"Goldenglow Estate," he said slowly, watching as her eyes skipped over the map. "It rests just outside the city. Do you know it?"

Maddie's mouth twisted unhappily. "I think I passed by on my way into Riften."

"The estate is critically important to one of our largest clients," Mercer went on, his eyes on the girl and not on the map. "However, the owner has decided to take matters into his own hands. He's shut us out. He needs to be taught a lesson."

Maddie glanced up from the paper, looking skeptically at the guild master. How Mercer felt at being questioned so by a new recruit, he did not let on. His every look, his every move, was guarded as he watched Maddie go back to the map, and when he turned to Brynjolf, he gave nothing away.

"Brynjolf will provide you with the rest of the details," said Mercer, and without another word, he walked away.

Brynjolf watched him go. There was something deeply troubling about Mercer wanting to send an untried recruit in to do a job that one of their best infiltrators had failed to do, and had, in fact, almost died in the attempt. One of them was being tested, and he was unsure whether it was the girl or himself. Whatever the cause, whatever the guild master's reasons, his promise to keep the girl safely hidden was already in jeopardy, and the outcome was to be on no one's head but her own.

When he looked back to her, she was staring at him, as if she could read his thoughts. That same frown was on her face, and she seemed to have an earful ready for him, but it was not the time, nor the place, and she knew it. While many people were away, the Cistern was far from empty. That much, at least, he was grateful for.

"Tell me about the Goldenglow job, Bryn," she said softly, as if it was the last thing in the world she wanted to know.

"It's a bee farm; they raise the wretched little things for honey," he said, wanting to keep it simple for her. "It's run by a smart-mouthed elf named Aringoth." And there it was, not a lie but an omission, so quick he'd not even realized he'd done it. Was he protecting her, or himself, in avoiding telling her it was an Altmer she would be dealing with? Though he was certain the old elf had no connections with the Thalmor, he remembered well her history and he did not need the girl spooking needlessly.

Still, she needed to know what she was up against, as Vex, to her great peril, had not.

"Our arrangement with Goldenglow brought in a mountain of coin for the guild," he told her. "You could almost have called it our sweetest deal." He smirked as she rolled her eyes at him, but he could have sworn he saw the faintest trace of a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. "Then a few weeks back, out of the clear blue, Aringoth stops sending us our cut. Mercer was –" and here he paused, considering, "– well, _angry_ , to put it kindly."

"I can only imagine," she said, watching the direction in which Mercer had disappeared with that same anxious expression on her face. "What happened then?"

"We sent in little Vex," Brynjolf continued. "She's the best at what she does. Only, once she was on the island, she found out Aringoth had hired a bunch of mercenaries. Sent the city guard packing and fortified the entire island."

"And now it's my turn," Maddie sighed, and put down the map, as if she were ready, and it was so small a task he was setting her to. "What's the lesson Mercer wants me to teach him? I thought we were thieves, not thugs. You said yourself that our blades stay clean."

Brynjolf smiled. "Aye, in most cases, this is true," he said, and leaned back against Mercer's desk, wondering absently what kind of lessons it was the girl had learned in her lifetime that she would take the news of such violence with such ease. Then, he thought back to her quarrel with the Thalmor, the troubles she'd brought through the Flagon that fateful night, and the banner of blue she'd worn so boldly across her breast. _"This is my luck_ ," she'd told him, and he hadn't understood then, hadn't cared to – but now, here she was again, and that blue banner was buried and bloodied, and he had to wonder what kind of luck she truly had.

But at that moment, there was business to which he needed to attend, and those newly dark eyes of hers gave nothing at all away. So he went on. "What you're going to do – and what Vex tried to do – is clean out the safe in the main house," he told her, levelling his gaze on her with all seriousness. "And, to send our message loud and clear, you're going to burn down three of his hives."

"Arson?" Her frown deepened. "A far cry from thievery. There must be a catch."

He couldn't help but chuckle at her distaste. How she managed to stomach that pride of hers to lower herself to their standard, he would never know. "The catch is that you won't burn the entire place to the ground," he said, finding it amusing to alleviate some of that worry gathered there in her brow. "That important client that Mercer mentioned would be furious if you did."

She touched her hands to her cheeks, and glared at him. "The first bit of sense I've heard all evening," she said, an edge to her tone that he would have brooked from no other but her. As much as it pained him to admit, his fondness for the lass was growing, and in his line of work, it could be a dangerous thing.

It was not to be his last mistake.

"Aye," he said, putting those feelings of softness aside as visions of Maven's wrath filled him instead, "the last thing we want to be doing is crossing our clients."

"And what about Aringoth?"

Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. "What about him? Our client prefers that he remains alive. Alive, humbled, and humiliated. But," he conceded, "if he tries to stop you from getting the job done, or does anything untoward, don't hesitate to kill him."

A strange look came over her face. "But –"

"Getting the job done is what's important, lass," he said flatly. "If the elf tries to bungle it, it will only save the client from putting out the contract herself." Wordlessly, she nodded in agreement, and he was left with no doubt that she knew what she had to do. "The guild has a lot riding on this," he told her, and gave her a bit of a smile as he put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't make me look the fool now by mucking it up."

"You say that like it would be such an easy thing," she muttered, looking up at him briefly before shrugging off his hand. Her eyes went back to the map she'd put on the desk, and for all her concentration, the only thing she truly seemed to be accomplishing was her refusal to meet his eyes again. A shame, really. He was getting used to the difference in her appearance, and those dark eyes of hers were soulful and deep. "I suppose that's it, then. I'll scout the place out tomorrow." She took the map from the table, folded it, and tucked it away into one of the many pockets that adorned the front of her new guild leathers. But when she turned to leave him –

"A word of warning, lass," he said quietly. "Our little Vex scarcely made it out of there alive. You should talk to her before you go." He could hear the concern in his voice, and cleared his throat, trying to bite back a sentiment that should not be there. "And be careful on that island. Those mercenaries don't take prisoners."

Maddie still refused to look at him; he wondered what it was about the tops of his boots that she found so interesting. "Thank you for the advice, Brynjolf," she said, "but you needn't worry about me. I can take care of myself." And with that, she put her back to him and walked away.

 _Aye, sweet one, I know you can,_ he thought as he watched her go. _That is precisely what worries me._


	8. Concerning the Fate of Bees

At the centre of Lake Honrich, spanning over a cluster of rocky islands, sat Goldenglow Estate, as pretty as a picture. A fresh snow was slowly falling, blanketing the Rift in a veil of white; everything was still and quiet, and not a soul was to be seen. But for the thin tendril of smoke rising from the chimney of the great house, the estate gave the impression of abandonment, of hibernation, and of safety.

Under that charming exterior, however, Madeline knew a deeper, deadlier secret lurked. She'd seen with her own eyes the mercenaries Aringoth had hired, and she'd watched them while they went about their patrols of the estate. And then there was the memory of the mouthy one guarding the gate, who she'd met on her way into Riften a few days past. She remembered well the razor glint of his new steel. Aringoth must have been paying them well.

Who would have ever thought that the raising of bees could be such a dangerous profession?

When Mercer and Brynjolf had briefed her on the job, Madeline had tried to ask as few questions as possible, but she'd pieced together enough on her own during the interim to realize quite plainly what the stakes were, and how unfairly they were stacked against her. Riften was Maven Black-Briar's city, no matter what anyone said to the contrary, and she was a woman who did not do things by halves.

They had met once, Madeline and Maven, though the encounter had been blessedly short-lived. All it had taken was a brush of the shoulders, a glance in a crowded embassy reception hall, and Maven had known Madeline for the imposter she was. There was a hissed breath, a threat spoken low, a silence thick with fear, and then Madeline's saving grace had come, a voice calling out over the crowd, loud and brazen and slurred, and she'd slipped into the shadows and out of sight.

What Madeline had discovered at the embassy that night had led her to Riften, scarcely a step ahead of the Thalmor. The run-in with Maven had been completely forgotten. _"Talk to Brynjolf. He's well connected,"_ Delphine had said, with her usual callous disregard of the danger she put others in, the risks they took on her behalf, yet it was this advice that Madeline had followed to the letter, tracking down the man who gave nothing away for free. If not for Brynjolf's stalling and scams that day in the market, she would have found Esbern sooner and gotten away clean... yet, undeniably, if not for Brynjolf, she would not have found him at all.

Thinking about that whole mess sent a fresh surge of anger and guilt through her. She tried not to think of Esbern, if she could help it, but she wondered if the old man still waited for her in the stone-carved temple at the heart of the Reach, or if he'd finally given up hope of her fulfilling a prophecy that was as old as the bones of the world. She thought, too, of Delphine, of her drive and determination, and her willingness to sacrifice everything to reclaim such long forgotten glories as the legacy that had been denied her. Did her mentor still watch the roads from her craggy perch, Madeline wondered, and did she still listen to the stories that were carried in on the wind? What did she know of the fall of Whiterun, or of Falkreath that had come after? Had she somehow heard the tale of Ulfric and his dragon?

Would Delphine ever know how easily she'd been abandoned for the promises of a lover, a liar, a would-be king?

What troubled Madeline most, however, was her own indecision over which possibility made her feel worse. She knew very well that she could not outrun her past if she continued to carry it with her. She'd left High Rock with neither a goodbye nor a backward glance, and she'd never mourned the choice. Yet here she was, she who had forged her own path, haunted by those she'd deemed worthy to trust, those who had all betrayed her in their turn. What would it take for these ghosts to be silent?

The wind began to pick up along the lakeshore, and she decided to call it a day. The walk back into Riften was cold and lonely; she'd stayed out for far too long, and her toes began to ache in earnest as she passed through the gate. The guard gave her a nod, but she was not so comfortable yet in her new position as to return it. She did not like the feel of Riften, that undercurrent of corruption that reeked of money and blood. Perhaps she'd been a fool to come here.

Then again, her choices had been woefully few.

She was still lamenting her predicament when she entered the Cistern, barely managing the icy ladder with her dignity intact. One of the other thieves muttered some gruff greeting as she passed, but she ignored him, keeping her head down. She went straight to the tiny little corner Brynjolf had designated as hers, and sat down on the bed, and then and only then did she allow herself to take a deep breath, close her eyes, and truly begin to contemplate what she was about to attempt.

Now, there were things she had done in her life that she was not proud of, especially since leaving home and _especially_ since arriving in Skryim. She'd lied and stolen, she'd killed men who meant to kill her; there was blood on her hands that would never wash off. She'd turned traitor against the Empire, raised arms against it in rebellion; it was a fight she had no part in, she knew that now. Too little, too late... it was damage that could not be undone. Whole cities now bore the scars of this folly.

Yet she could not understand why this simple little thing troubled her so. A little burglary, a little arson, all done from the shadows; it would tip the scales of favour in Riften, and no one need know she had any part in it. But her heart was heavy as she pulled on her guild leathers, and each clasp and buckle in her fumbling fingers felt like chains locking around her wrists and ankles, holding her to this place, stealing her freedom away. But as she pulled the heavy hood up over her hair, she realized one sad and terrible truth: freedom was a luxury for one such as her, and it was a luxury she would never be able to afford again.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled the belt of her quiver over her head; strapping her unstrung bow to her back felt like a prison sentence. Was that what awaited her at the end of the night, an extended stay in Riften's dungeons, abandoned by the guild who'd only just welcomed her? There was to be no knowing, and the night was wasting. She held her chin high as she left the Cistern. What else was there for her to do? The weight of the eyes on her was heavy with the knowledge of what it was she set out to do, and she wondered, as she knew they wondered, would they ever lay eyes on her again?

Madeline had no trouble finding Vex in the Flagon. A lithe and pretty blonde with a sneer that could curdle milk, she leaned against a stack of crates in the corner with a look of such superiority on her face, it would have been easy to believe that she singlehandedly ran the whole outfit from her throne of tangled netting. Even Vekel gave her wide berth when he bustled past, and Madeline found herself trying to summon the threads of her courage before she approached.

"So you're the new blood," said Vex.

Madeline hadn't even opened her mouth to speak, and so was a moment in recovering before she said, "Brynjolf sent me to speak with you about –"

"Goldenglow," Vex spat with considerable distaste. "I heard."

Madeline made to reply, getting as far as to stammer the first syllable before Vex held up an impatient hand, and Madeline found herself brought up short again, less out of respect than an uncertainty just then of whose toes she was willing to step on. Vex was reminiscent enough of Mercer as to make her decidedly wary.

"Before we begin, I want to make two things perfectly clear. One," said Vex with a toss of her pale hair, "I'm the best infiltrator this rathole of a guild has got, so if you think you're here to replace me, you're dead wrong." She let the malice of that thinly-veiled threat hang in the air a moment before she continued. "And two, if you work for for me, you follow my lead and do exactly what I say. No questions, no excuses."

Madeline nodded.

"Then we understand each other," said Vex, and she gave Madeline a once-over with an increasingly critical air. "Good. Now, I don't want to waste a lot of time talking about anything but business, so –"

"I heard Goldenglow is your business," said Madeline finally. "I heard you ran into trouble there."

Vex's already unsmiling mouth settled into a grim line. "I did," she said, as if it pained her to admit. "That wood elf _s'wit_. He's a lot smarter than any of us expected – it takes a lot to outwit Maven Black-Briar. I would have been impressed, if it hadn't almost gotten me killed." Vex gave a cruel laugh. "Did you know that fetcher more than tripled the guard? There must have been eight of them in the house, and half a dozen more patrolling the island. It was like he was _daring_ us to come in and get him."

Madeline tried to look concerned. After all, it was _her_ life on the line now, her with something to prove. Why she was doing it, now there was something to keep her up at night. Still, she'd have to live to see the end of the evening, first. And so she asked, "Is there anything you can tell me about getting into the main house?"

Vex looked her up and down again before she replied. Whatever she saw, it seemed to satisfy her enough to judge Madeline worthy of her help, Brynjolf's orders be damned. "There's an old sewer tunnel," she said finally. "It dumps out into the lake on the northwest side of the island. That's how I slipped in there. It's been a few weeks, but it should still be unguarded."

Madeline sighed. A lot could happen in a few weeks, but it was her best – and only – shot. She couldn't bring herself to thank Vex, but she managed a nod before she walked away, her mind whirling. Vex said nothing, and allowed her to go.

Madeline didn't like any of it, and she was growing worried.

The more she learned about the situation at Goldenglow, the more convinced she became that Mercer was simply trying to get rid of her by throwing more than she could handle at her when her feet were scarcely in the door. Was it to be trial by fire? Was he trying to frighten her, or did he expect her to prove herself a coward? Or worse yet, were his intentions more sinister – was she being sent in to die? No matter the reason, it made no sense to her. She was no one to Mercer Frey; she was only some waif Brynjolf had picked up by the wayside, which seemed to be a habit of his, or so she'd gleaned. She was no one anymore. What threat could she possibly pose?

 

* * *

...

* * *

 

When the Thieves Guild made their second attempt on Goldenglow, the night was crystal clear and bitter cold.

Lingering in the shadows clinging to the wall of a crumbling old keep the locals called Falder's Tooth, Madeline watched the island at the centre of the lake for signs of life. An overgrown path was all that separated her from the shore, yet she could not bring herself to cross it. The lake looked treacherous in the moonlight, its icy depths black and silent.

She was a long time talking herself into it. Although she was not a strong swimmer, it wasn't the distance that gave her pause. It was the temperature. She tried to remind herself that she'd once braved the Sea of Ghosts to touch a standing stone and kill an ice wraith; she still had the tooth she'd taken as proof of her valour. Brittle and sharp, it sat gathering dust on a shelf at Hjerim, its significance lost.

And now here she was on the brink again, cowering on the shore, afraid to take the plunge, but she could not deceive herself into thinking her purpose was anything but dishonourable. She'd never been much good at lying to herself.

It was the sounds of movement and the barking of dogs in the keep towering over her shoulder that finally forced her into the water. She tried to move as silently as possibly, stroking forward with one arm with the other held her pack on her shoulder and out of the water, but she was a good way from shore before the icy water seeped its way beneath her leathers and her limbs began to stiffen. It tired her out, and she all but crawled up onto the shore, where the thin skein of ice that had built up there crunched loudly beneath her knees. Shaking, shivering, her whole body protesting, she scarcely managed to lift the grate Vex had told her about, and down she fell.

She lay there for a time, listening for voices or footsteps, but she heard nothing. Her arrival had gone unannounced, it seemed, and for that she was grateful. It was difficult to remind herself that she did not have all the time in the world, that Brynjolf and Mercer were impatiently waiting. Her numb and quaking fingers could scarcely string her bow, but after a few attempts and more than a few colourful curses, she managed it. Soon after, she was on her feet and moving again, but the swim in freezing waters had drained her energy and sapped all her spirit.

The grimy, winding tunnel seemed to stretch on forever, as she felt her way along in the dark. She told herself that it was caution, and not fear, that kept her from lighting a torch. There was no mastering her shivering; she was sure that the chatter of her teeth echoed down the corridor. All too soon, the blade of her dagger was coated in skeever blood, and her boots were slippery with it. However, it seemed that Vex had been right, after all; the tunnel remained unguarded, and the mercenaries blissfully unaware of her intrusion.

Perhaps luck was on her side. She could admit that it was a nice thought, that her very presence was turning the guild's bad luck around, that she'd return to the Cistern to the guild master's approval, but she did not look forward to testing the theory when she reached the house.

Her heart was pounding in her throat by the time the tunnel came to an abrupt end and she was faced with another ladder. Up she went, biting her tongue to stop from grunting as she hefted the old grate over her head, sliding it out of the way to peek outside. The night was as she'd left it, cold and utterly still. The afternoon's clouds had drifted north over the mountains, and the moons that night hung low and big over the mountains, the midnight sky an endless spray of stars.

Ever so quietly, Madeline pulled herself up and slid the grate back into place. The tunnel had come out right beside the main house, along the wall where the shadows were deep. The chill in her bones was renewed as she crouched against the house and tried to will her hands to stillness, the better to pick the lock on the door, but half a dozen picks lay broken in the snow before the lock finally gave way and she was able to ease the door open.

The warmth from inside caressed her face as she peeked in; she saw no one, only a long corridor, dimly lit by yellow candles. She waited; her breath was stuck in her throat, and her heart seemed to want to dislodge it with every painful, leaping beat. Madeline was glad she was the only one who could hear its reckless pounding.

She slipped inside and closed the door noiselessly behind her. A smoky warmth wrapped itself around her, but she did not relax. The air was heavy with the scent of stale spirits and pipe-smoke, and she could hear murmuring voices and creaking floorboards from farther in, other rooms where the hired mercenaries were still blessedly unaware she was skulking about. Not wanting to waste a single moment, she crept as silently as she could along the corridor, trying to remember the plans that had lain on Mercer's desk. To the left, a pantry; to the right –

Madeline stopped cold. There, seated with his back to her, was a guard; he was well armoured, his body heavy with steel and leather, and she could only presume that he was armed in much the same way – heavily and with steel. She waited, counting the seconds, but he did not make any immediate movements, seemingly intent on whatever was before him, whether it be drink or dice or cards. But she could not stand there watching him forever, and her soft leather boots scarcely whispered against the floor as she passed him by, taking the immediate right again, which led her through an empty dining room. At the far end was another doorway, and if she remembered what she'd seen on Mercer's desk correctly, she had managed to put herself right where she wanted to be.

Which meant there was trouble ahead, undeniably.

She could hear the tromp of boots here, the jangle of buckles, the clank of plate; the sound grew louder, footsteps approaching. She stepped back from the doorway, flattening herself against the wall. The patrolling guard came to a stop, somewhere beyond the slice of hallway she could see through the door. With bated breath, Madeline waited for him to move on, but as if out of pure spite, he stood there for a time, rocking on his heels and humming under his breath. Soon, however, and much to her relief, he walked away, his heavy footsteps echoing tellingly down the corridor.

She was trembling terribly when she approached the doorway and checked the hallway. It was clear, though for how long, she had no way of knowing. There was only so much hallway the guard could walk before he'd turn around and come back her way. It was time, she realized, her now-or-never moment, and scarce had the thought crossed her mind before she was creeping up the stairs.

Luckily, not a one of them creaked.

The upstairs proved to be much more troublesome than the down. The first room was crowded with furniture, the tables littered with coins and sticky with spilled ale; a bottle of Honningbrew had tipped over on the table nearest the door, no doubt during some mercenary's drunken stumbling, and its leftover contents had run all over the floor. She wrinkled her nose; even the Flagon, a tavern that was built over a run-off cistern and run by thieves, was in better condition than this. Gingerly, she stepped around the spill.

Heart pounding, palms sweating, Madeline made her way deeper into the house. The second floor was a twisted knot of short corridors and small rooms. Unlike downstairs, no one patrolled these halls. At first she thought that perhaps the upstairs was empty, but the first sight of a hulking, fair-haired Nord with his back turned to her sent her stomach lurching all over again. His shoulders were broad, cloaked in fur, and the blade at his hip was surely meant for her. He was leaning casually against the wall where two corridors met; she knew immediately there was no getting past him. The door to her left was her only option, and she opened it carefully, silently sending up a prayer for divine grace, before coming to the stark and sobering realization that no god would look favourably upon her at that precise moment, and she was left wondering and empty.

_Then to whom do thieves pray?_

She passed through a guest bedroom, blessedly uninhabited, though the signs of occupation were apparent, the floor dirty and the beds unmade. A plate of food atop a dresser had been given over to mould, and she was hard-pressed to keep herself from gagging as she slipped past. Creeping closer to the door, she slowly poked her head out into the corridor, that brutish mercenary still at the foremost of her thoughts, but a heavy wardrobe lined up against the wall hid him from her view – and she from his.

Breathing the first sigh of relief she'd allowed herself all night, she moved along the hallway with great care. Another turn, and then another, led her to an anteroom, where another mercenary sat. This one was smaller than the other, if she was any judge, and the smell of drink on him was so strong that it reached her out in the hall. The cards that were spread out on the table held his rapt attention, and by the sag of his shoulders, she guessed he was not long for this world. It was with something close to confidence that she sneaked past him, wondering all the while why luck seemed to be on her side when it had all but abandoned Vex on the guild's last attempt.

The door the mercenary was meant to be guarding was locked, but she managed to unlatch it without a single broken pick, and the door opened and closed without a sound. Inside the master suite, she slumped against the wall a moment to catch her breath. Her heart still beat wildly in her chest, and the damp woollens she wore beneath her armour itched terribly. She was eager to finish the job and get out of that damnable place, but she could not rush herself into making a mistake. She stood and stretched her back, then looked around. In comparison to the rest of the house, the master suite was in pristine condition.

She caught sight of a strange-looking golden statue resting on the bedside table. Curious, she stepped up onto the dais at the centre of the room. The statue, glinting in the candlelight, was that of a bee standing lightly on a plinth in the shape of a honeycomb, all wrought in gold. She reached out to touch it, wondering how heavy it was, if perhaps she should take it, and if such a prize would put a smile on Mercer Frey's glowering face, if it would bring that glint of mischief to Brynjolf's eyes.

Then came a sound, a sigh of disgust, from behind her. "Worthless mercenaries," said a voice.

Madeline jumped and whirled around. Standing in the corner, hidden in the shadows created by two massive wardrobes, was a man. By the fine cut of his clothes, and the gold chain that hung around his neck, there was no doubt in her mind that this was the Aringoth she'd heard so much about, but her heart caught in her throat at the realization that he was no wood elf. With a height that surpassed even Brynjolf's, skin like pale gold, and bright amber eyes, his was the blood of the Summerset Isles, and she cursed her new guildmates as fools for not knowing the difference. For Madeline, it was difficult to remember, especially in that moment, that not every Altmer in Skyrim was associated with – or answered to – the Thalmor, but it was a distinction she was keen to make. Despite all her troubles, the last thing she wanted was more blood spilled on her account.

However, Aringoth looked like a man already defeated. His clothes were rumpled, his hair unkempt, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.

"I didn't think Maven would allow me to get away with this," he said wearily, "or Mercer, for that matter, but I had little choice."

For what it was worth, Madeline's heart went out to him, fighting the battle he had against Maven and the guild. She could admire that sort of obstinate courage, even if she knew how it was rewarded. She was there, after all, the herald of his day of reckoning, however reluctant her involvement. "Please give me the key to the safe," she said, but there was no pleasure in it for her – not such as Brynjolf might have found, anyhow.

Aringoth smirked. "Such manners, coming from a thief," he said. He shook his head. "I won't just hand it over. If I do, I'm all but cutting my own throat."

"What makes you think Maven won't arrange that?" she asked, and it was as much a threat as it was a plea for common sense. She could hear Brynjolf's sanction to kill Aringoth in her head, his disregard for the life of this traitor, but she had no desire to see it escalate so far. So, she spoke a terrible truth. "It could be the brotherhood paying you a visit next."

Aringoth thought but a moment on that before he paled. He reached into the pocket of his coat, and handed her a small iron key. "Take it, it's yours," he said. He did his best to straighten his coat, and retain what dignity was left to him. "When the new owner finds out I gave in to Mercer, I'm as good as dead anyway."

Madeline paused, the key pressing into her palm as her fist tightened around it. "A new owner?" she asked, too quickly to mask her confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I've already said too much," said Aringoth, his face hardening. "I've given you what you want, now go. Leave me in peace." And with that, he moved his coat out of the way to show her the dagger on his belt. Shaking her head, she tucked the key into one of her many pockets and turned away. She was almost to the door before she remembered the statue. Aringoth eyed her suspiciously as she went back for it.

"I'll tell Mercer you sent this gift in good faith," she said, as she stuffed it into her pack. She left the elf to his cowering.

Outside the master suite, the mercenary on guard had passed out, his head resting on the table as he softly snored. Madeline crept past him, following the same path that had brought her to Aringoth. It wasn't until she was downstairs, and she was forced to pick the lock of the iron gate while the patrolling guard's back was to her, that she remembered the danger she was still in. The gate creaked as she opened it, and she was quick to lock it again. She all but slid down the steps into the cellar. She crouched beneath the stairs and held her breath for longer than she cared to admit, but the guard in the hallway was oblivious to her presence.

A cool, damp rush of air rose up to meet her when she opened the cellar door. It was darker here than the rest of the house, and the shadows were deeper. The floor was stone, wet and slimy; someone had scattered hay along the stones to guard against slipping. She was forced to slow her pace, to be more careful, as any sound she made sent soft echoes dancing before her, as good as announcing her unwelcome presence and dishonest intentions. Yet that same complication worked in her favour, as she heard them before she saw them, a pair of Aringoth's hired men, drinking and dicing at the far end of a huge room used for storage. Half-hidden behind a table, one with the chairs up-ended and stacked on top, the two men were distracted by their game, and even as she tiptoed by them, she had to shake her head at Aringoth's poor luck. His mercenaries had grown complacent, it seemed, in all the time that had passed since Vex's failed attempt.

She reached a corridor where the floor was shiny with spilled oil, and a lone mercenary was slumped in a chair, his feet kicked up onto another, his head lolled back in slumber. Was it luck that had made the trek through the house so easy, when both Vex and Brynjolf had done everything they could to stress the danger of the job?

Just past the sleeping mercenary was another set of stairs, the air growing ever cooler as she descended. Another passage, another turn, and she found herself in a room lit by a solitary candle burning on the table amid purses of gold and stacks of coins. Next to the table was Aringoth's safe, and next to that, a battered old chest. She slipped her pack from her shoulder and left it open on the floor, but when she pulled the key from her pocket and opened the safe, all she found was a small purse and two sheets of paper. Her shoulders fell. After all this, somehow, she'd expected more.

Nevertheless, she had a job to do. She swept the contents of the safe into her pack, and even though she knew it was wrong, she took a quick glance at the papers, wondering what was so important to Aringoth that he had to lock it up, what was so important to the guild that it needed to be stolen. The paper was thick and creamy, with elaborate etchings all around the edges, and there was an unfamiliar symbol near the top, a dagger of sorts. Her eyes widened as she read, and by the time she'd finished, she was shaking her head. She carefully placed the papers in her pack and made ready to leave. There was an iron grate to her right, and if she remembered the plans from Mercer's desk correctly, there was a trapdoor cut into the floor just beyond it, and that was her exit point. When she hoisted it open, the smell of rot and decay nearly knocked her over. There was no ladder, and she was forced to drop down into the darkness.

Madeline allowed herself a few moments of rest then, leaning a shoulder back against the weeping wall. She wished that her heart would stop its furious pounding, but her task was only half-complete. There was still the matter of the hives. Grumbling, she forced herself to stand straight again, and held out her hand, palm up and open. She tried to even out her breathing, letting her eyes drift closed, focusing on lessons long left to languish in the annals of her memory. Conjuring what calm she could from within, she concentrated on the heat she wished she felt, and was rewarded with a tiny wisp of flame bouncing happily in her open palm, and, though she was probably imagining it, the smell of burning dust. To be fair, it had been so long since she'd attempted to use magic that it wouldn't have surprised her if she wasn't imagining it. In fact, she was more than a little surprised that she'd managed it at all. With luck, she'd be able to concentrate enough to set the three hives aflame before the mercenaries patrolling outside were aware of her presence.

With the end of the night finally in sight, she rushed along the twisting tunnel, nearly tripping over dead skeevers in her haste. The trapdoor had left her at the grate nearest the house; she wanted the grate that would lead her back to her starting point on the northwest shore of the island. From there, she would need to cross over to the apiary on another island. Unless Aringoth's sentries had all decided to take a holiday, she wouldn't be able to use the bridge, but if she was lucky, she wouldn't even get the tops of her boots wet.

The ladder groaned under her weight, and the grate was heavier than she remembered, but she needed only slide it a fraction of the way before she could heft herself through the opening. The night welcomed her with a kiss of frigid wind and the wink of starlight. In her absence, the sky had given itself over to the dance of the aurora, pale ribbons of pink and orange shimmering amidst the moons and stars. She took a moment to admire the pageant, kneeling there on the rocky beach, overcome by a sense of such clarity that it all but stole her breath away, so small and insignificant was she beneath that living sky. For a moment, she felt certain of herself; for a moment, she felt ready for whatever was to come, everything else be damned.

The moment didn't last.

She hadn't even gotten her boots wet before she heard it, a far off echo, the distant wail riding on the wind. She paused, frozen, listening. It came again, closer, resonating with that keen edge of terror that sent her heart thundering. The ground quaked, and even the sky itself seemed to grow darker. The windows of the big house flared with light, and from all corners of the island, men were shouting, sounding the alarm.

_Dragon._


	9. The Unknown Blade

From the balcony of Riftweald Manor, Brynjolf watched the world burn.

Never in his life had he felt so helpless. Never before had he felt so small, at the mercy of forces completely beyond his control. He didn't like it; he was the master of his own destiny, and he fought daily, sometimes _hourly_ , to maintain that balance. But this – this was something else entirely.

It was Maul who had come to fetch him; the mercenary seemed cursed indeed, to be tied to the fate of Goldenglow Estate. Not so very long ago, he'd pulled Vex from the lake, battered and bleeding. He was ever Maven's watchful eye on all things concerning her fortunes in Riften, and his presence in the Flagon could only mean dire tidings. Surely enough, when the quiet word he wanted to have with Brynjolf turned out to be _Goldenglow_ and _dragon_ , the thief, himself a master of cool facades and reined emotion, could not hide the sickening dismay he felt. No one could know that his deepest concerns were not what they should be, that he would damn the estate and their client and his guild master to the farthest corner of Oblivion if something happened to Maddie on that island, but in that moment, all his guildmates saw was the worry on his face, and he left them to wonder at its cause. They would know soon enough; Maul's very presence, after all, hearkened bad news, and it was with the tightest control and the knowledge that all eyes were upon him that Brynjolf followed the mercenary out of the Flagon. Not a word was said as they crossed the Cistern and left through the secret entrance. No one came after them. They all knew better than that.

Once they were alone, however, Brynjolf could no longer maintain his stoic silence. "Would you care to fill me in, lad?" he asked as he pulled the chain that would open the low ceiling above their heads. The night's miserable cold hit him full force as the door rumbled slowly open.

"I'm only here to fetch you," said Maul. He grunted as he kicked the grate in the floor closed with his steel-plated boot. However, after a moment of consideration and a single sidelong glance toward Brynjolf, he added, "I don't know much, Bryn, only that Goldenglow's lit up like a torch and Maven's throwing a fit."

"And what of the dragon?"

Maul shrugged. "There is one."

"We'd best hurry, then," Brynjolf said. His mood was as black as the night around him as he ascended the stone steps. The normally quiet night was alive with the sound of the distant chaos as the citizens of Riften left their homes and made for the docks to see the dragon with their own eyes. None of it boded well for Maddie, out there alone on that island. Brynjolf could feel his every heartbeat in his throat like the blow of a hammer, so thick and heavy that he wondered if he might choke on it. He followed Maul out of the cemetery, the graves looming around them in the darkness. The walking path that ambled along the city's perimeter wall took them quickly to Mercer's estate; Riftweald Manor, the false-front of his proud citizenship, its very presence an undoubted affront to Riften's morally inclined masses.

Though Brynjolf was glad to get out of the cold, the interior of the manor was dark and unwelcoming. He left Maul at the door with his thanks and hurried upstairs, following the muffled voices coming from above. He ignored the prowling mercenaries Mercer had hired to guard the place, and they ignored him equally.

"There you are," Mercer said as Brynjolf entered the master suite.

Brynjolf said nothing, only pushed his hood away from his face, acutely aware of the eyes that were on him. A fire was blazing in the hearth, but it lent no warmth to the room; seated before the fire was Maven Black-Briar, a heavy fur mantle draped over her shoulders, and the anger in her eyes burned hotter than any fire ever could. Brynjolf found himself wanting to shrink back from such fierce displeasure, but instead he flashed his most charming smile, ready as ever for whatever trouble was about to be thrown his way.

"Brynjolf," Maven said with great disdain. "As I understand it, I have you to thank yet again for this mess. Honestly, do you have anyone competent working underneath you anymore? How hard can it possibly be to steal from a bee-keeper?"

"Ah, Maven," he replied, taking the empty seat next to her. "Lovely to see you, as always." He was distinctly aware of Mercer lurking darkly in the deep shadows next to the hearth, where the dancing light of the fire could not reach. His silence was foreboding, the cross of his arms over his chest and the hard set of his jaw easy to read. "No word from Maddie, then, I take it."

"No, not yet," Mercer said. "I doubt she made it off the island."

"I wouldn't doubt her so easily, Mercer," Brynjolf said with all the confidence he could summon, and for the girl, it was a great deal; he remembered well the bloody mess that had been left behind in the Ratway the night the Thalmor had gone in after her, never to come out again. He knew both Mercer and Maven remembered that night and its far-reaching consequences, as well. Once, he might have felt a great thrill at the con he was pulling right under their noses, his superiors so blindly unaware of Maddie hiding in their midst, but now he felt only guilt and anxiety at what he'd begun and where it could lead. It seemed he was growing a conscience in his middle age, and he cared for it not at all.

Mercer, on the other hand, only snorted and turned toward the fire. "We shall see." The flickering light gave the sharp angles of his face a sinister cast.

"Who was this girl?" Maven asked. "She's no better than the last one."

Brynjolf was annoyed by the old harpy's casual disregard of Maddie; his feelings for the girl aside, Maven's attitude showed a distinct lack of faith in the guild, and he tended to take that personally. "Speaking of the last one, Maven, did your friends at the embassy ever manage to catch that little thief?" he asked bitingly, giving her the smug grin he knew she hated.

Maven turned up her nose at him. "I've no doubt Elenwen has dealt with that matter accordingly, and you should mind your business – and your betters. I will not be ignored, Brynjolf. Who was this girl you sent to Goldenglow Estate?"

"Just a kid off the road, in need of gold and a place to hide," he said, "just like the rest of our foundling family. Have a little patience, Maven. She's already worked a number of jobs for the guild. She was born for this. And, as far as I understand it, it's the matter of the dragon that should have us worried, not whether or not she cleared the safe yet."

"So far as I'm concerned, this is entirely your fault," Maven said levelly, "and this recruit of yours has set the whole island ablaze, dragon or no. I gave this job to _you_ weeks ago, Brynjolf, I expected it to be done by now. Who picked tonight of all nights for this debacle?"

There was nothing Brynjolf wanted so much in that moment than to throw his hands up and walk away – the desire to wrap those same hands around Maven's bony neck notwithstanding. Her circular arguments were wearing on his nerves. It was a disastrous situation, to be sure, but it was not the result of poor planning, or poorer execution. Call it what you would – divine providence, bad luck, or Delvin's curse, it mattered not. There was simply no accounting for a dragon. He knew there would be no convincing Maven of that, and convincing Mercer to side against her was a battle he was not keen to lose. So, Brynjolf did the only thing left for him to do. He walked away.

It was fresh air he was after – that, along with a cool and level head, something he would not find with Maven and Mercer breathing down his neck. He knew his way around Riftweald well enough to show himself to the balcony, and once he'd closed the door, he leaned his shoulder back against it so as not to be bothered. If he'd hoped for a few minutes of peace, he was sorely disappointed.

Riften did not sleep that night. It was dark below him, the canal an empty chasm between the boardwalks, crowded with people on both sides, and the heavy doors to the docks were thrown wide open. The guards had extinguished their torches, so that no lights burned anywhere in the city, but his thief's eyes could make out the silhouettes against the velvety darkness. The men and women of his fair city could never resist trouble. Their greedy eyes could not look away.

In the distance, the fires burned. Over the city's walls, the night sky glowed orange, and the smoke writhed and rose in a towering column, reaching toward the heavens as something alive, blotting out the moon and stars. Brynjolf moved away from the house and stepped up to the rail, straining to see, but the estate was too far and the night too dark. He thought, perhaps, he saw a great black shadow slipping in and out of the plumes of smoke, but he could not trust his eyes, dancing with pinpricks of light each time he looked away from the blaze. He _heard_ it, though, that terrible deafening roar, high and sharp, echoing across the lake until it seemed to come from all directions, and even Brynjolf's steely resolve trembled.

He was still watching and listening when there came a thundering crash, and a fresh jet of flame spouted from the darkness. Brynjolf held his breath, and then –

It was difficult, later on, to explain what he saw, though he would only ever tell the tale to one other person. There were plenty of witnesses on the docks who would attest to it, if asked, but Brynjolf would never be quite sure. A rumbling wail rent the darkness, and all at once, the night blazed with clean white light, a star burning on the shore; the light _flowed_ , somehow, like wind turned visible, a breath made tangible. It lasted only a moment, that burning, breathing star, before it faded and was consumed by blackness, and all the night was still.

A shout and a cheer came up from the streets below. People began to talk and sing, and the guards lit their torches as it became apparent the danger had passed, the dragon was gone or slain, and the fires would in time burn themselves out. The estate was a loss, and none of their concern – hadn't Aringoth said as much when he'd kicked them out? Perhaps they would answer to Maven later, but when working for the Black-Briars, it was best to never, ever act without orders.

Brynjolf did not go back into the house. The dragon might have been dead or fled, but things were still going on in the streets below that needed watching, and he was not ready to give up. He felt as though his hands were tied, and he hated every moment. He could only wait for Maddie to return. He could not show his concern by sending the boys out to look for her; she was raising too many eyebrows already, and leaving too many questions unanswered. His gut told him that something was not right, though how he could claim to be so attuned, he didn't know; what he did know was that he'd always made a habit of listening to his gut, no matter where it led him. Some nights, he was kept up wondering if it was this very thing that had led the guild to ruin; other nights, he wondered if it was the only thing keeping them alive.

Slowly, the cold chased the gawkers back to their homes, the gates were closed once more, and the night grew quiet. After a time, the guards began to muster at the south gate, ready at last to send a party to Goldenglow to extinguish the remaining fires and assess the damage. Was it Laila who'd finally gave the order, Brynjolf wondered, or Maven? It mattered little. The south gate was of no concern of his; it was the door to the Black-Briar Meadery he watched, where a solitary lantern hung to light the dooryard.

His patience was rewarded, as patience often is; the door to the meadery opened, just wide enough for a small shadow to slip through. Brynjolf caught the barest glimpse of her in the light before she was gone again, but it was enough. He'd know her anywhere, damn fool girl.

Brynjolf didn't waste any time, going immediately to Mercer, still huddled with Maven by the fire. "She's returned," he said, lingering but a moment in the doorway. "Came through the meadery a few minutes ago."

Mercer's frown was deep and dark. "Find out what happened. If she didn't finish the job, I'll drown her in the cistern myself."

"Didn't finish the job?" Maven said, scathing in her disbelief. "The estate is worthless to me now! Do you know how much it's going to cost me to import honey from Cyrodiil with this damnable war going on while I rebuild the place? Never mind what _that's_ going to cost me! If that dragon didn't take Aringoth's fool head off, then what was the point of this ridiculous folly? I want this girl brought before me, do you hear me, Brynjolf? I'll have the answers out of her myself, and then Mercer can do with her as he pleases."

"Aye," Brynjolf said, though he couldn't be bothered to even look at the old hag. It was Mercer he watched, Mercer he followed. His guild leader only gave him the slightest nod before looking back to the fire. Maven's word was not law – unless Mercer's sanction made it so.

Brynjolf stormed out of the house and made his way through the dark and cold back to the Cistern, his black mood growing; anger and frustration that had long festered inside of him began to seep into his every thought and breath. By the time he was down the ladder, he was fuming.

Delvin was waiting for him in the alcove beneath the secret entrance, making a rare appearance in the Cistern in honour of all the commotion. In fact, to Brynjolf's dismay, there seemed to be more people than usual milling about, all waiting with bated breath for his arrival. One glare sent them scattering, but old Delvin was not so easily spooked. "What's all this about a dragon, eh, Bryn?" he asked, his owlish face alight with curiosity. "People are talking."

Brynjolf held up an impatient hand. He was in no mood to be recounting stories. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"Maddie? Came tearing through here a few minutes ago. Went straight to the training room. She's probably hiding from Mercer. What's going on, then?" Delvin asked. Brynjolf only shook his head, and clapped his old friend on the shoulder. There was business to attend, and he wasn't about to be dragged into one more lament of their current cursed misfortune. As he walked away, Delvin called after him. "Go on, then, ignore me. Figure this all out myself, just you watch."

Brynjolf stalked into the training room, ready to have the whole story out of the girl right then, but one look at her stopped him in his tracks. All the fight went out of him as he caught her off-guard, her vulnerability bared before him. Her hair was a wet and tangled mess, the auburn locks clinging to her naked back. Her guild leathers lay in a crumpled heap at her feet, and the only thing that obscured his view of her body in its sweet, shivering entirety was her small-clothes hanging about her hips – and, he noticed, a long, narrow scar running down her left side, slanted from the bottom of her ribcage to her waist; it looked to have been left by the bite of a blade, and it showed the angry red of fresh healing – and the touch of magic, if he was any judge.

It was easy to forget at times how young Maddie was, with her eyes flashing their challenges and her temperamental mouth giving him no end of grief. Easy to forget – yet in that moment, he was starkly reminded that the world-weary girl had once named herself Archer to fight under the Bear's banner, that she'd made enemies of elves and brought a world of trouble down on his guild. Now she stood before him, her scars laid bare, her shoulders slumped with the weight of her burdens, a weight that he himself had added to.

She'd heard him coming, and glanced back over her shoulder to see him pausing in the doorway. She frowned at the sight of him. She kept her silence long enough to pull a thin shift over her head before turning to him. She was deathly pale, her lips almost blue with the cold. "Kynareth have mercy," she said, her voice low and tremulous. She crossed her arms over her chest to warm herself, or perhaps to hide her breasts, defying all modesty with the chill. "What do you want, Brynjolf?"

He didn't answer her right away. He couldn't. She'd knocked all the words clean from his throat with the glare she'd given him, as if daring him to look at his own peril. He stepped into the training room to buy himself some time, allowing the silence stretching on between them to speak in volumes for him. And just as he'd hope, she shrank back a bit, and her rebellious pout lost some of its sting.

"What do I want, lass? What do you think?" he asked, walking a slow circle around the training room. "You've made a mess of things, and Maven is furious. You were told not to burn more than three of the hives."

"I made a mess of things?" She raised her eyebrows, disbelieving. "It was a damn _dragon_ , Brynjolf! What was I supposed to do, ask it very nicely to please leave the poor little bees alone? If the island wasn't crawling with mercenaries, I might have –" She stopped herself there, chewing on her lip in frustration; her teeth left deep red welts in the pale flesh before she let it go with a sigh. "Never mind," she said, shaking her head. "I suppose it doesn't matter what I say, does it? If Maven Black-Briar is already furious."

Though she made no attempt to hide her disdain, her grasp of the situation surprised him; he could almost have said it was a pleasant surprise, if the situation wasn't so dire. Maven's word was not law, unless Mercer made it so. Indeed, it was a truth some of his boys still had trouble coming to terms with, years into their association. He'd had trouble with it himself, scarcely an hour before. Still, his special arrangement with Maddie did not change the way things worked, though he hoped to give her some consolation. "I've smoothed things over with her for now," he said, though it was far from the truth, "but you can forget about your cut. House rules." He leaned back against the corner wardrobe, standing so close that he could smell the smoke in her hair, and see the pinpricks of gooseflesh that covered every inch of her skin that was visible to him – and, presumably, the skin he could not see.

"Forget about my _cut_?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice down. She then gave the sort of hollow chuckle that made him feel he was making a fool of himself. "I don't need a cut, Brynjolf. I don't _want_ one. I never wanted your gold or your guild, but this was your deal, your _idea_ ,and now Mercer decides I'm the only one for this impossible job and suddenly I've angered Maven Black-Briar over a bunch of _bees_?" She turned and gave him the cold shoulder, rummaging through the rucksack on the table. She pulled out a well-worn blue dress, shaking the dust out of it with a _snap_.

"Leave Maven to me. Her fury will burn itself out in a few days," he said, stepping back as she yanked the dress over her head for fear of getting an elbow upside his own. "Now tell me true, lass, how bad is it?"

She didn't look up at him as she laced the bodice closed. "The house still stands, but all the hives are gone. Once that dragon flew in, they went up like kindling. I _tried_ , Bryn, but I couldn't –"

"Hush now," he said, but still she refused to look at him. With a sigh, he reached out and swept her damp hair out of the neckline of her dress, and pulled it forward to drape over her shoulder. His thumb lingered on her collarbone, his knuckles brushing against the top of her breast. She raised her eyes to his, so dark and withdrawn, and he found himself looking deep into them, thinking all the while that he missed the green her eyes used to be, the eyes with the wildfire spark that had reminded him so much of someone he had lost long ago.

"You shouldn't," she said, but it came out scarcely more than a whisper. She held his eyes, refusing to acknowledge where his hand had so boldly come to rest, and after a moment, he brushed his thumb along the neckline of her dress once more, slow and deliberate.

"Answer me this, lass," he said, pressing his advantage by putting his other hand to her waist. He was pleased when she did not pull away. "If it's not the gold, or the guild, or the glory, what then? Why are you here?"

A tiny smile played at the corner of her mouth. "Because I knew you would protect me," she said, tipping her head back so that he might better see her face, and know she spoke the truth. "Although I never thought this was how you would do it."

"Now, if you'd only tell me what I'm meant to protect you from," he said, though he knew she would not give him an answer. That would have been too easy. He found her faith in him most enticing, and in a moment of recklessness, guild and glory be damned, he bent his head and kissed her. He half-expected her to slap him for his nerve. She didn't. She softened beneath him with a sigh as his arm tightened around her; she leaned into his touch until the very moment of its breaking.

"Tell me again that I shouldn't," he said when he pulled away.

" _We_ shouldn't," she said, but she raised up on her toes anyway, kissing him as he had kissed her, softly, slowly, and with great care. She opened herself to him, tasting of cold and of lakewater, and it was next to nothing to slide his hand up to caress her neck, to cradle her jaw in his palm and guide her where he would. It was a moment made for just the two of them, stretching on as if time had no meaning, as if Mercer wasn't waiting and the job didn't matter. Maddie pressed her fists against his chest, her fingers curling around the belts of his armour as if she wanted him to be her anchor to this world, and he thought for a moment he could not bear the burden of her trust, because the Eight only knew there were much safer harbours in this world than his.

So he ended the kiss there, though he could not bring himself to untangle his hand from her hair, and he cursed himself a fool for it. "You may be right, lass," he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment. "One problem at a time."

"Speaking of which," she said with a weak little smile, as if she were glad for the distraction, "I have something for you." She gently removed his hand from her hair, and when she stepped back from him, she bumped into the table; he caught sight of a fierce blush just as she turned away. She rummaged through her pack a moment, and the usual thoughts of gold and jewels passed through his mind. However, when she turned back to him, all she had to offer was a shamefully small purse of coins and a single sheet of paper. "This is all that was in Aringoth's safe."

Brynjolf felt a surge of relief, as if he'd suddenly let go a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "That's something then, isn't it?" At least she'd remembered one of the things he'd asked for. He took the paper from her, but only nodded toward the coins; he had no use for them. She returned them to her pack as he read with mounting concern what had been so important to Aringoth that he'd locked it in his safe. He would not have believed it were he not seeing it with his own eyes.

"Did you look at this, Maddie?" he asked. She shook her innocent head. _No,_ he thought, _what time would she have had to look this over with a dragon on the loose_? His brow furrowed as he looked back to the sheet of paper in his hand. It was a bill of sale for the estate, marked with an strange cipher, a single dagger on a field of black. Aringoth hadn't just shut them out, he'd sold Goldenglow right out from underneath of them. "What is that idiot thinking?" he wondered aloud.

"What's happened?"

"Aringoth _sold_ the estate," he said, handing her the document. He didn't think twice about sharing the information with her, not after all she'd been through. She was as tied up in the fate of the estate as he was, now. "I don't understand why he'd risk Maven's fury by cutting her out of a deal."

Maddie glanced up from the paper, her mouth a grim line. "He's certain to find out," she said, sounding almost sorry about it. Brynjolf couldn't say he shared her sympathies. There was nothing he wanted more than to send one of his boys out to the estate to deal with the beekeeper before Maven had the chance, if only to steal the satisfaction for himself, but the decision did not rest with him. Perhaps it was better that way. "Brynjolf," Maddie said then, cutting into his thoughts, "who would dare to willingly make an enemy of Maven Black-Briar like this?"

"It may not be as simple as that," Brynjolf said, taking the letter from her. He looked at it one more time, his concern only growing; it made no mention of the Black-Briars at all, yet warned against association with the guild. "If only the parchment had the buyer's name, instead of this odd symbol." He folded it carefully, and tucked it into one of his many pockets. "I'll check my sources, and speak with Mercer," he said, wishing he could brush off the terrible feeling the symbol was giving him. The sooner he saw Mercer about this, the better; the bad luck with the dragon was nothing compared to the trouble this could cause. "As for you, lass, I think it best if you lay low for a few days, and stay out of Mercer's way. Go talk to Delvin, see if he can't drum up some work for you."

"If you say so," Maddie said, her mouth twisting in such a way as to say she did not agree with him at all, but she gave no voice to whatever her concerns might be.

"There's a good girl," he said. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple. She looked up at him, her brows knit together. There was no mistaking the doubt in her eyes. "Off you go now, lass. I'll see you soon. Stay out of trouble now, you hear me?"

"No promises," she said, and he found it difficult to stop himself from kissing the little smirk right off her lips. But instead of leaving, she stayed rooted where she was, looking up at him with those wide, dark eyes, searching his face as if she were trying to come to a decision. After a moment more, she seemed to make it. "There's one more thing, Bryn," she said. "These are for you." Without waiting for a reply, she upended her rucksack onto the table; a number of charred objects fell out.

Brynjolf could not help himself; like a magpie, he was drawn forward, wondering why in the world the girl would give him –

"This is all I could salvage. Have Tonilia take these to Elgrim," she said. She picked up a long, curved bone, and held it up for him to see; it left ashen streaks on her hands, marking her pale skin black. "And tell her not to take less than three hundred for them. _Each_." She levelled him with a serious look. "He'll say he has no use for them, but it's a lie."

Brynjolf picked up one of the strange objects. This one wasn't a bone; it was thin and flat, and it had the cool feeling of stone, but instead of being rough to the touch, it was smooth as glass, and flecked through with more colours than he could name, each winking at him as he turned it in the light. It was a dragon scale, he realized, only a moment too late; smooth and sharp as a dagger, he cut the tip of his finger on the rounded edge, and with a chuckle, handed it carefully back to Maddie.

"What's all this for, then?" he asked, looking down at the small fortune she was so willing to hand over. She shrugged her shoulders as if it were nothing. She put down the bone she'd held up to show him, wiping her hands clean on her dress before gathering up her pack.

"It's the guild's cut from _my_ job," she said, refusing to look at him, and that was where she left him, looking at the blood welling from the tip of his finger and wondering what in Oblivion _that_ was supposed to mean.


	10. Dragon's Tongue

If there was one thing Madeline was good at, it was doing as she was told – the trouble with dragons aside, anyhow.

She felt as though she were still running on pure fear and instinct as she left the Cistern in search of Delvin Mallory. Brynjolf had suggested laying low for a few days, and getting out of town for a job seemed the only plausible option, unlikely to cause any undue suspicion. The shadows of Mercer Frey and Maven Black-Briar loomed large over her shoulder, chasing her forward. Truth be told, she did not want to stop and linger over what had happened in the training room, and so it was from this she ran, as well, the memory of a kiss so unexpected, it had all but taken the breath right from her lungs. She thought she could still feel the prickle of his beard against her chin, and she touched a hand to her cheek as if she could brush it away.

She found Delvin in the Flagon, nursing a bottle of expensive Black-Briar reserve. She didn't know how anyone in the guild could stomach the stuff, but she doubted they had much choice in the matter, and so she kept the opinion to herself.

Delvin looked up with a lopsided smile as she sat down across from him. "Ah, the woman of the hour," he said. "Heard you ran into a spot of trouble out at Goldenglow."

"More than a spot, I think," she admitted. She could tell by the way he raised his eyebrows at her that he was expecting a story, but she was in no mood for a recollection. She could still feel a weak, pulsing echo of the dragon's power resonating inside her; she could hear its last thunderous wail in her mind. The very bones of her still trembled with the rush of it. She hated the business of dragonslaying, and avoided it when she could. Ofttimes, the sleek, majestic creatures were content to leave well enough alone, unless you were so hapless as to stumble directly into its lair. However, there was no accounting for the frightened mercenaries on the island who had aggravated the beast into aggression. Besides, she seemed to have taken the incinerating of the beehives a touch personally. Once the beast was down, there was no getting away from what always happened next. She hadn't _wanted_ the dragon's soul to come bearing down on her in a furious torrent of light and power – she didn't have a choice. But she couldn't very well share any of _that_ with Delvin Mallory, now could she?

Gods above, she'd never been any good at keeping a low profile.

"Brynjolf sent me," she said, sticking to the immediate truth, all other complications be damned. "He said you could line me up with a job; get me out of town for a few days."

"Oh, did he now?" Delvin mused, folding his arms over his chest. "And what does Mercer have to say about this, eh?"

"Honestly, I was hoping to be on the road before he found out."

Delvin chuckled. "Got a lot of nerve, you do. I like that," he said. "But what makes you think I'm going to stick my neck out for you?" He held up a hand before she could even think to reply. "And don't go telling me you got Brynjolf's say-so. Last time I checked, it was him owed _me_ a favour."

Madeline sighed, but she shrugged her pack off her shoulder and fished out the last of her Goldenglow spoils. She'd hoped to sell the golden bee statue in the city; her own purse was a little light for her liking, and she was abysmally short on arrows – and there was always provisions for the road to consider, even with the bed and board she now had to work for. Every coin she had to her name – her _old_ name – was tied up in Hjerim and was as good as lost to her. Despite what she'd said to Brynjolf, coin did concern her. She couldn't live off of favours, especially if things kept going the way they were. Curse, indeed.

Delvin perked up as soon as he saw the statue in her hands. "Well, well," he said, his eyes aglow as she gave it up. He looked it over appraisingly. "I was looking for this little beauty." He glanced at her. "You lift this from Goldenglow?"

She nodded.

"So close, all this time," he said, shaking his head. "Good on you, love. This ought to turn Mercer's head. For a few days, at least." He winked at her, looking so satisfied that she had to smile, feeling pleased with herself for the first time that night. "Now then," Delvin continued, as he set down the statue in pride of place on the scuffed and filthy tabletop. "I got a job in Whiterun needs doing, if you're still interested."

She wasn't, but she took the job anyway, and left Riften before the sun was up.

It felt good to stretch her legs and set out on the road again – even if the cold had grown bolder of late. The days were growing shorter and the cycle of the Evening Star had come round once more. It was her first winter in Skyrim, the homeland of the dead father she'd never known, and what had become the most eventful year of her life was drawing to a close.

Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined what one act of rebellion would begin. She ought to have been more careful, taking her fate into her own hands as she had. It was the most daring thing she'd ever done in her life, up until that point at least, getting off the boat at the wrong port instead of sailing on to the Imperial City and the life waiting for her there. Thinking back on it now, she wondered if marrying a merchant's son she'd never met would have been better than the trouble she'd found since, or if she had made the right decision, saving them both from a simple, boring life. She doubted her betrothed would ever have such a choice. In the end, it seemed the only one she'd saved from that life was herself.

Still, she had no regrets – not over leaving home, not over finally getting out from under the thumb of her _grand-mère_ , who would, Madeline was certain, live on into eternity purely out of spite. No, Madeline's regrets had come after crossing the border into Skyrim, and bad luck and betrayal became her constant companions, and it seemed it would never stop, the fear and the shame and the doubt. She was doomed to make the mistakes that would shake the very foundations of the world.

 _Archer,_ Delphine had called her, never bothering to learn the truth; _the last Dragonborn_ , Esbern had named her, admiration clear in his rheumy eyes; _my little dragon,_ Ulfric had called her as she arched beneath his strong, calloused hands.

Brynjolf called her only by her name. _Sweet Maddie,_ he was fond of saying, leaning in so close that she could see the flecks of gold in his deep green eyes. Strange, she realized, to use a fake name to build herself a life, only to return to who she really was to go into hiding again. Brynjolf remained the only person in Skyrim she'd ever trusted with her true name, but she wasn't so certain anymore that she should have trusted him at all. They were growing too close; she was getting too involved. Hiding from the dragons and the war was not supposed to involve being singled out by the guild leader to run jobs for Maven Black-Briar; it shouldn't have meant changing her appearance and pretending to be someone she wasn't.

The trouble was, the more involved she became, the less it felt like she was pretending. It felt as if she was becoming, and she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that. She couldn't forget the twisted sense of pride she'd felt when she'd handed Delvin the statue, nor could she deny how far she was willing to go to prove to Brynjolf his faith in her was not misplaced. It all left her deeply confused and troubled. She hadn't come to this land only to become a thief.

It wasn't that she didn't understand the guild's place in the grand scheme of things. She knew the merchant class liked to engage in their petty games of money and power, just as the nobility did. But while the games the Jarls of Skyrim played tended to lead to bloodshed and war, the secret business of the merchant class played out on a much smaller scale. The guild capitalized on this, doing their underhanded dirty work – and doing it well – so some fat shopkeeper could add a few more coins to his purse, and another would find his own pockets that much lighter.

It was a world she wanted no part of, this ugly underside of the life she'd left behind. Strangely enough, however, it was not the thieves with whom she wanted no association; it was people like Maven Black-Briar, vicious, ruthless, and entirely without honour or honesty. As little as Madeline wanted to admit it, there _was_ honour among the thieves of Riften – of a sort, anyhow. The malice of Mercer Frey aside, she had been treated fairly since her arrival. She could not say the same about the other places she'd been.

Yet here she was, helping the guild to move the pieces of the game around. Giving – and taking away. She wasn't the one calling the shots; she only did as she was told, and would keep her mouth shut about it as long as she was able. It was, perhaps, the one lesson in her life she had learned quickly and well.

She made it as far as Ivarstead that first day. The sun set early, the twilight growing bolder with each passing day, and she was not about to risk the mountain roads in the dark. No one at the inn bothered her; no one _recognized_ her, though she'd passed through the sleepy little village more times than she could possibly count.

To give credit where it was due, the face sculptor's illusion was an incredible feat. Galathil had changed Madeline's hair, her colour of her eyes, the line of her brows; all small changes that made a remarkable difference. Though she still found herself a little shocked to wake up to a tangle of fiery red hair instead of her own short dark locks, Madeline hardly felt any different. The magic worked well enough, just as Brynjolf had predicted, hiding her in plain sight, and for that she should be grateful.

It snowed the second day, making the trek through the mountains that much more difficult. The howling wind sculpted the snow into drifts, like soft waves, along the road. When she reached Helgen, she stopped to rest. She'd been through scarcely a fortnight before on her way to Riften, but the ruined city seemed a different place now, buried beneath a foot of snow. Peaceful, almost, if not eerily quiet. There were no ghosts here, only dead things, scorched wood and shattered stone, and even though Madeline was not afraid, she didn't linger long.

A few hours later, the road took her through Riverwood. She refused to stop, even though she sorely wanted to warm herself at the inn. It was late afternoon when she passed through the tiny village scattered along the edge of the river, where the chimney smoke hung low and thick, a hazy pall in the winter stillness. A lone Stormcloak patrolled the road, and he idly warned her against making trouble. She had no reply for him; she only pulled her hood down lower and hurried past the Sleeping Giant.

It hadn't been so very long ago when she'd stumbled down this road on a quiet afternoon late last summer, covered head-to-toe in ash and soot and blood, following behind Ralof, the Stormcloak soldier who'd saved her life. She was already in over her head by then, and blissfully unaware of it. She hadn't met Delphine then … no, those paths hadn't crossed until later, and even now, Madeline wondered if that meeting had been written in the stars.

A hundred days had passed since then, and she'd faced a dozen adventures grander than she could have ever dreamed when she was a child, and in those same hundred days, she'd found more trouble than she could have ever imagined when she'd left High Rock, determined to change her fate.

She should have been more careful what she wished for.

Madeline's memories led her down a treacherous path, and every step was maddening. Her time in Riverwood, planning and training with Delphine at the inn, still haunted her dreams, and woke her up in the black of night with a lonely ache in her heart, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, a feeling of things yet left undone. Secretive and unshakable Delphine, whose purpose had reawakened alongside the dragons, who had taken a young girl under her wing and tried in vain to make her a hero.

It shamed Madeline to think how naïve she'd been then, how willing she'd been to trust a complete stranger – it was a lesson she was slow in learning, she realized as she crossed the stone bridge, leaving Riverwood and her guilt-ridden remembrances behind. She hurried to get away. She would never get away.

The sun was low in the sky when at last the road wound around a rocky outcrop, and the city of Whiterun high on its hill came into view. Just as it always had, her breath caught in her throat at the sight, at the sprawling majesty of it, walls and plains and sky. However, as the road carried her down out of the foothills and she left the snowy woods behind, even in the growing twilight she could see the scars the battle had left on Whiterun's ancient walls, and it caused her stomach to knot and her heart to sink with regret.

Daylight was failing as she passed through the city gates. The streets were unusually quiet; only the clamour and clang of the blacksmith's hammer broke the winter stillness. Madeline hurried past the shops and homes, looking neither left nor right as she crossed the market and climbed the steps to the inn.

The Bannered Mare was achingly, immediately familiar, and if her heart hadn't been leaping into her throat as it was, she might have smiled. The inn was crowded with locals warding off the cold with mead and food and song. No one seemed to notice her, a quiet young woman sitting in a corner, intent on her supper. She looked to be ignoring everyone and everything, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Madeline waited for the volume to reach a certain pitch, when the drink was still flowing freely and the stories were still being told, and when that moment came, she slipped the bard a few extra coins to sing Ulfric's praises – _loudly –_ and when she was sure everyone was pleasantly distracted, she crept into the kitchen to deal with the books.

She'd just finished changing the last one to a zero when the bard plucked his last note to weak and scattered applause, and behind her, someone cleared his throat. Startled, she glanced around. At the small table in the corner, skulking in the shadows, was a man. Had he been there the whole time? She most certainly hadn't seen him when she came in. His face was gaunt, his skin pallid, but his blue eyes were sharp and quick and were at that moment narrowed with suspicion and looking directly at her.

"Can't a man drink in peace?" he asked. He voiced no alarm at what she'd done; in fact, he made no indication he'd seen anything at all, though she knew very well he'd caught her changing the books red-handed. Madeline wondered if he was perhaps one of Delvin's contacts, but she was not fool enough to ask. She decided it would be best to make herself scarce. The job done, she ducked out the kitchen door into the cold, and was out of the city before the gates closed for the night.

* * *

...

* * *

By the time Madeline made it back to Riften, she was certain she'd never be warm again. The journey back had been fraught with trouble and worry; she'd eaten little, slept less, and she was miserable with cold. She was relieved when she caught her first glimpse of the city walls through the trees. A disquieting feeling, that wash of relief; the sight of disreputable Riften should not have assuaged her so.

After her encounter with the strange man in the Bannered Mare in Whiterun, Madeline was determined to get back to the relative safety of the guild as soon as she could, no matter the consequences awaiting her there. She had travelled from the city into the small hours of the morning, only stopping once she'd reached Helgen, where she slept uneasily in the ruins of the crumbling watchtower. Her rest had been short-lived. She'd awoken screaming from dreams razed by fire, and was back on the road before dawn. She met no one on the long, winding road through the mountain pass and she was glad when she finally reached the forests of the Rift that crept lazily up the mountainside. Even though she was all but numb with the cold, she had trudged past the fork in the road that would carry her to Ivarstead and a warm fire and a hot meal. She had worried that if she stopped, she might not be able to start again. She had worried that she might run again, even though she had nowhere to go. And so she'd continued on, determined to pay the piper.

The guard at the gate into Riften was hesitant to let her pass. The hour was late, and the streets weren't safe, there were dragons about, and so on and so forth came his half-hearted excuses until a few coins and her most charming smile changed his mind. The guard grumbled loudly at the inconvenience as he opened the gate just wide enough for her to slip through. As exhausted as she was, she didn't question why it was so easy. She should have known better … she should have paid him more.

Tired but resolute, Madeline hurried past the keep with its high, honeyed windows all lit up in the deep dark of a winter's night. She met no one on the streets, despite the guardsman's claim it was not safe after sunset. The city seemed all but deserted; even the keeper of the shrine to Talos had left her post, gone to seek her warmth elsewhere. The gods, after all, could not protect against exposure and frostbite, no matter how hard one prayed. The absolute quiet that filled the night in the absence of the kind priestess followed Madeline as she crossed the graveyard and slipped unseen into the mausoleum. She worried, as she always did, that the rumble of the floor as it opened into gaping darkness would bring the guards at a run, but no one heard nor saw her as she hurried down the steps. No one cared enough to.

The heavy, humid warmth of the Cistern enveloped Madeline in greeting as she descended the ladder. All the signs of life missing from the streets of Riften were present here. Laughter, voices, music. The stone walkways were crowded with people, some of whom she recognized, and some she'd never seen before. The cold weather was keeping the thieves close to their den – or perhaps it was fear of Delvin's curse that stayed their wandering. Either way, Madeline couldn't be bothered to care. She was glad for the presence of so many, where she could move through the press of bodies undisturbed; no one stopped her, no one knew enough about her to even call out her name. Alert, she looked about for Brynjolf or Mercer, seeking one out of desire and the other out of dread. She saw neither, and that troubled her more than it should.

The Ragged Flagon was far colder, and far less crowded. Up on the gallery, Tonilia drank alone, whilst Galathil was absorbed in her book and thoroughly ignoring her. Delvin sat at the bar, quietly conversing with Vekel, who was lovingly attending the scuffed counter with his favourite dirty rag.

Her weariness taking over her all at once, Madeline slumped down on the stool next to Vekel. She slipped her rucksack of her shoulder and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor.

"Get you something?" Vekel asked by way of a greeting.

"Whatever is hot," Madeline said, not caring at that moment if whatever he brought her had already been in the pot a day. Instead, she was pleasantly surprised when he placed a steaming bowl of venison stew and a heel of bread in front of her. Grateful, she offered the old tavern master half a smile and began to eat.

Delvin waited until she was through with her meal before nudging her with a gentle elbow. "Everything run nice and smooth?" he asked, and when she nodded, his face broke into a wide grin. "This kind of work suits you," he said, "and if you keep this up, it's going to wind up making you rich." He dug into one of his many pockets; the purse of coins jingled temptingly as it hit the counter. Without preamble, Madeline swept it up, and gave the old thief another nod of thanks. Her supper eaten, she had every intention of heading back to the Cistern, her bed, and the warm oblivion of sleep. Delvin, however, still had a mind for business. Just as she was slipping off her stool and reaching for her bag, he asked, "Brynjolf find you yet?"

Madeline stood up straight, her rucksack still a heap at her feet. "No," she said, slowly, carefully. "Was he looking for me?"

"Been in a tizzy all day waiting for you to come back," he said with an air of casual neglect. "One would think there were important matters need attending. Best you go find him, eh?"

Madeline struggled to keep her disappointment from showing on her face. "I'll do that," she said, and fetched her bag, leaving the Flagon in all its depressing former glory behind. "Thanks, Delvin."

"Anytime, love. Anytime."

The Cistern was no less crowded when she returned, and much noisier than before, if such a thing were indeed possible. A heavy-set Nord with long dark hair and an even darker look about him sat at one of the trestle tables, plucking away at the lute on his lap. All around him, men and women drank and diced, calling each other by name, laughing at jests made at each other's expense, and the ones made at their own brought the greatest laughs of all. There was a sense of home and family here, something Madeline had never considered when she'd accepted Brynjolf's offer to hide amidst them. It was not something she would have wished for herself; it was not something she could will herself to be a part of.

Keeping her head down, Madeline hurried to her bed – and there, she saw something that made all the commotion of the Cistern die away to dim silence.

It was such a simple thing. So odd and out of place, there on her pillow; a flower in the dead of winter. With a shaking hand, she picked it up, twirling the stalk between her fingers. Its yellow petals were soft and bright as butterfly wings, shot through with veins of orange and red, and at its centre, the sprig of deep purple, a haunting likeness from which the resilient flower took its name.

Dragon's Tongue.

Realization spread over her slowly as she stared, dumbstruck, at the undeniable truth she held in her hands. With a shuddering breath, she dropped the flower back onto the bed as if it had burned her fingers, even as approaching footsteps came to a stop behind her, and a warm voice spoke in her ear.

"Welcome home, lass."

Madeline whirled around. Brynjolf was almost on top of her, his green eyes dancing like wildfire in the torchlight, his smile wolfish and arrogant as he gazed down at her. Had it been only mere moments before when she'd actually looked forward to seeing him again? She could not think of a single thing to say, her tongue tied in a knot that would be her undoing.

Taking advantage of her silence, Brynjolf stepped around her, and reached down to pick up the blossom she'd been so quick to abandon. His eyes lost none of their vainglorious glow as he held it out for her, but she could not bring herself to take his offering. Brynjolf chuckled low at her reticence. "I think it's time we had a bit of a heart to heart," he said, and he gave her a roguish wink. "Don't you agree, little dragon?"


	11. Fools Rush In

Brynjolf was a fool.

There was nothing he hated quite so much in the world as being tricked. He considered himself an intelligent man; cunning and confident and careful. And clever, yes. Too clever by half, Mercer was fond of saying, and Brynjolf took fierce pride in it. What little remained of the guild's glory was due in no small part to him, his endless efforts to keep them a step ahead of whatever and whoever it was lying in wait to trip them up and leave them out of the game for good. Everything he had down to the very breath of his body was tied up in this venture, and he rose and fell with the whims of Fate and Lady Luck, as they all did. But he'd always considered himself apart. Above. And he did not appreciate being made the fool.

It had started simply enough – if indeed the uproar caused by the dragon attack on Goldenglow could be considered anywhere near to simple. Or if the clandestine kiss he'd stolen in the training room as the thief he was could ever be so undervalued as to be considered simple. After Maddie had left him in the training room, rushing off with a last flustered glance over her shoulder, he'd lingered for a time, allowing some distance between the moment they'd shared and all that was to come. After all, he was not so green as to expect his night was over just because the job was done. The piece of paper crumpled in his fist, the deed to Goldenglow with its odd bladed symbol, was proof enough of that.

Acting as though he had all the time in the world, Brynjolf milled about the training room setting things to rights, waiting for those who were in need of him to seek him out on their own. A mark of his influence, to bring the world to a grinding halt until his presence was desired just because he felt like it. He tucked away the treasures Maddie had left for him, ashen bones still warm to the touch and stony scales that glittered like stars in the torchlight; he highly doubted Tonilia would be able to move them without drawing unwanted attention to the guild, but that was a problem for another day. He locked the bottom drawer of the cabinet, wondering just why it was that the girl had lingered long enough after the mercenaries had brought down the dragon to walk away with such prizes.

It was then Brynjolf decided he knew too little about dragons. It wasn't until much later that he would realize he knew too little about his little Maddie, the girl who'd once called herself Archer.

Soon, Delvin came to find him.

"You know, that girl of yours has got a lot of brass for such a little mouse," Delvin said, chuckling. "Starting to make me a bit leery."

Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Seems to think you're the one running the show, and not Mercer," the old thief said, but there was no laughter this time, and his expression was unusually grave. "Listen, I like this girl. Seems like a good kid. I wouldn't want to see her doing anything foolish. Hasn't anyone told her about Maven yet?"

"Aye, she knows about Maven." Shaking his head, Brynjolf sighed; the threat of Maven's fury simply didn't put the fear of the gods into the girl the way it would a sensible person. He didn't know what to make of that. At the mere thought of Maven, he felt weary and frustrated, and he dreaded the coming dawn when he would undoubtedly be summoned to another audience. It was a bed of his own making; he was to be bulwark of flesh to guard Maddie against becoming the sole focus of Maven's unfathomable displeasure. Then again, as he flinched to think on the girl's cavalier attitude toward such close-to-home dangers, he wondered if she really needed his help – or deserved it.

"Bryn!"

He turned at the sound of his name. The next part of his evening was beginning; Sapphire had come into the training room, an unusually bright smile on her normally sneering face. The sight of her did not fill him with confidence. "What is it, lass? I'm a touch busy here," he said, more snappish than he meant to be. The girl didn't wince at his harshness, however. She only grinned all the more.

"Mercer wants to see you," she said, her voice dripping with intrigue, "and what's-her-name, the new girl. _Now_."

"Well, this should be interesting," Delvin said, laughing. Sapphire screwed up her brow, confused, but Brynjolf had already brushed past her. "Good luck, then, mate," Delvin called after him, and the echo of his laughter off the stones followed Brynjolf out of the training room and into the Cistern.

Mercer was at his desk, which had been cleared of most everything that usually cluttered it, the maps and books and inkpots gone. It was as if he was expecting something. Brynjolf hated to disappoint him, but at least he wasn't coming empty-handed.

"Where is she?" demanded Mercer. The glower on his face was immediately familiar, and Brynjolf reminded himself to proceed with the utmost caution.

"Off on a job," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if he hadn't gone against Mercer's direct order, as if that in itself were so insignificant a thing. Best to go with as much truth as possible; all a part of the long con. "I thought it best to get her out of Maven's way until we sort things out."

Mercer glared at him. "I distinctly remember telling you differently. You're going to a lot of trouble to protect this girl."

"I've been telling you from the start," Brynjolf said, chuckling, though it was no laughing matter. "This one is different."

"She's turning your head. I don't like it," Mercer said, and he slammed his fist down on the table. If he hadn't been prepared for it, Brynjolf might have jumped. Mercer's eyes narrowed in anger. "Look at the mess she's made." He gestured to the empty desktop, as if the answers were written there for all to see. Anyone else might have been confused, but Brynjolf understood: work had come to a standstill, and it was because of the Goldenglow job. Because of Maddie.

"Yes, yes," Brynjolf said impatiently, though it was hardly his place. He was pushing his luck with every word he said, and yet he could not stop his tongue from wagging. "The girl botched the job, though I don't think any one of us could truly be held accountable where a dragon is concerned, myself included."

"Dragon or no, Maven is furious –"

"Aye, she is, but when is she not in a rage?" Brynjolf said. He decided then it was time to play the only card he had, and handed the deed the girl had lifted over to Mercer. "It's going to be worse when we show her this."

Mercer snatched the paper out of Brynjolf's hand. "It can't be..." he mumbled at first glance, taking in that symbol, what it said, what it meant. His face hardened, his eyes glinting with anger like struck flint. The further he read, the more he recovered his initial shock, and when he'd finished, he crumpled the document in his fist and dropped it on the desktop as if it was worthless. "There's something else going on here. Aringoth isn't this foolish."

"I think we underestimated his desire to get out from under the guild." Brynjolf picked up the deed, smoothed it out, showing his guild master he thought this was far more important than such immediate dismissal. He tucked it away into a pocket sewn into the front of his armour. "But what do you make of that symbol? I've never seen its like."

It was then that Mercer did something unexpected: he lied. "Neither have I," said the guild master, his voice lowering to a dangerous register. "I'll check with my contacts. Something will come up." It was the change in his tone that gave him away, so slight yet so conspicuous that Brynjolf was surprised Mercer of all people had let himself slip like that. Something had him off his guard – something he'd read had shaken him. Brynjolf didn't know what to make of it; he couldn't remember the last time he'd caught Mercer lying to him. Long before he'd become his second, that much was certain, back before he'd proved himself the most trustworthy, the one willing to do anything to help the guild succeed. It didn't occur to him then to question his guild master's motives. In that moment, he still trusted Mercer, and his concern was elsewhere.

What a fool he'd been.

"And what about Maddie?"

"What about her?" Mercer sneered, and he was back to himself, oblivious to Brynjolf's doubt as if the moment of untruth had not occurred. "Maven wants her to answer for what happened out at Goldenglow, and that's exactly what she'll do." Mercer lifted a stern finger of warning, as if he were suddenly the patriarch he was supposed to be, shoes Brynjolf had been filling for too long. "Don't get too close to this girl, Brynjolf. These kids you bring in come and go, and none of them are ever worth the time and resources you put into them. She'll move on soon enough. They always do." There was a smug smile on his face, showing that of this fact, he was so very certain.

Brynjolf was going to enjoy watching the girl prove him wrong.

"What will we tell Maven, then?" he asked. "She'll want to know about Aringoth's little plan."

"Leave her to me," Mercer said, already turning his back, and with that, Brynjolf was sent on his way.

However, despite the guild master's assurance that he would deal with Maven Black-Briar, Brynjolf found himself summoned to an audience all the same, just as he'd known he would be, rising out of his bed at an ungodly hour to trudge through the biting cold and thick morning mist. The smoke from the fires at Goldenglow still hung heavy in the air, stinging his nose with every breath he took.

At the manor, he found the matriarch herself sat presiding over breakfast. He was offered neither meal nor seat, relegated to standing at the foot of the table like a chastised child while Maven glared at him distastefully with those black, black eyes.

"Worse and worse news this morning," Maven finally said, her voice dripping with contempt. "One of the guardsman coming off duty just came to see me. He was on road patrol last night. Do you know _why_ he came to see me?"

Brynjolf suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He knew when he was being baited. He could scarcely bring himself to dignify the question with a response – but he knew his place, however much he hated it. And so he gave his shoulders a shrug, and shook his head.

"I'm sorely disappointed, Brynjolf," she said. "I had thought we had an understanding. To hear from a _guardsman_ what should have come from you! Did you think you could keep this from me?"

The deed in his pocket weighed heavy. He didn't understand how a guard patrolling the road would possibly have access to the information it contained. There were only three people in the guild who knew about the deed, so unless Aringoth had spoken of it before – no, it didn't make sense. Perhaps he should have insisted the girl kill him; perhaps letting him walk away had been a mistake. "Maven," Brynjolf said, reaching into his pocket for the deed. "Mercer insisted he be the one –"

"No, I will hear it from you. Now. What does Ulfric want with Goldenglow?"

Brynjolf made to respond, an automatic defence, but then he fell short; his brow furrowed in confusion. "What are you on about?" he demanded, forgetting to check his tone. "What have the bloody Stormcloaks got to do with this?"

"If I knew the answer to my own question, why would I ask it in the first place? Idiot!" Maven knocked her wine glass off the table in fury and frustration; it clattered to the floor in a messy spray of red, spilling like blood across the carpet. "What was Ulfric's _whore_ doing there? The thief who went in, where is she? She must have seen something. You were supposed to bring her to me. I'll have the truth out of her."

"She's indisposed," he said. "And she said nothing of Stormcloaks on the island. Only Aringoth, his mercenaries, and that damnable dragon."

"And the Dragonborn there to slay it!" Maven said scathingly. "Honestly, what kind of fools do you employ?" In all the years he'd worked for the old harpy, he'd never heard her come so close to completely losing her temper. It worried him – though no more or less than this news of Stormcloaks on the island during the dragon attack. "That useless steward of Laila's is going to work herself into knots wondering why Ulfric's sending that little bitch up here."

"You've ears in the keep," Brynjolf pointed out. "Was there was no mention of this before last night?"

"No," she said, looking down that long, thin nose at him. "I want answers, Brynjolf, and I want this brought under control. If Elenwen should get wind of this –" She cut herself off then, knowing she'd said too much, and glared at him fiercely, as though he were somehow at fault for her loose tongue. "Leave me," she commanded, and Brynjolf needed no more prompting. He all but stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him. To Oblivion with propriety and respect.

He was in a fury when he returned to the Cistern, and he snapped at the first person he saw to fetch him Delvin immediately, and never mind why. He went straight to the training room, and sent the subordinates loitering there scattering with a few curt words.

And then, he paced.

His mind was reeling. Realization had been quick, but the settling of reality much slower. He was not one to panic, but the moment certainly called for it. How had he missed it? He'd seen the dragon fall with his own eyes, the blazing light like a star come to earth, and he'd never thought –

What had he gotten his guild into? He knew she was a deserter, knew what she was running from, but he'd never put the pieces together, hadn't wanted to, so blinded by his feelings for her, by his greed, his own confidence, so certain she would be the one to save them. And here she was, Ulfric's _pet_ , on the run, and he'd given her sanctuary without a second thought. By the Eight, what had he _done_?

Delvin came ambling in, hands in his pockets. "What's this, then? You've got poor Etienne in a frenzy."

Brynjolf laughed, a hollow and mirthless sound. He hadn't even noticed – it would be Etienne Rarnis in his way when he'd come into the Cistern, wouldn't it? His damned poor luck. "Is Maddie back yet?" he asked, trying his best not to seem too hopeful, too anxious. He knew he was doing a miserable job of it, but after so many years, if there was anyone in the guild he could let his guard down around, it was Delvin Mallory.

"Sent her to Whiterun," Delvin said, raising a curious eyebrow at Brynjolf's agitation. "Going to be a few days yet. What's got you so worked up, eh?"

"More trouble on the horizon, my friend."

"That all?" Delvin chuckled. "And here I thought things had been downright peaceful lately."

"I wish I could share in your humour," Brynjolf said, weariness sinking in then, dampening the anger he'd felt was close to eating him alive. He felt so heavy, so tired. "Tell me, have you heard anything about Stormcloak soldiers at Goldenglow last night? Someone say something, maybe."

Delvin hesitated; an odd question that had come out of nowhere, and even without a response, Brynjolf had his answer. "No, didn't hear nothing, but it's early yet. Maul might now something," Delvin said in an attempt to be helpful. "What would Stormcloaks want with Goldenglow?"

"That's what I wondered," Brynjolf mumbled, running a hand down his face.

"I'll keep my ears open, eh?"

"I'd appreciate that."

Brynjolf waited until Delvin had left, and then slumped back against a table. He felt defeated, and unsure of himself, unsure of what to do next. It was not a feeling to which he was accustomed. He was a man who knew where he was going; he was a man who knew what had to be done. Cunning, confident, careful, yes, yes, all of these things. Comfortable, as well, and too much so. This life he'd chosen, that had chosen him, required a certain fluidity – demanded it, really. Such was the nature of their existence, ever moving with the world around them, within it but never a part of it. As changeable as the seasons, a leaf on the wind.

He had to get ahead of this. Dragonborn or no, he'd made the girl a promise. And no one would ever tell him again he was not a man of his word. He'd failed someone once; one fatal mistake and he'd buried her with flowers in her hair. He would never let it happen again.

It took him a long moment to gather his courage to face what was to come – whatever that might be. There was time yet to prepare for the girl's return, to brace himself for whatever lies – or truths – she would tell him. He knew his place in the scheme of things, and if he were to fathom a guess, she didn't. If he played his cards right, it might all work out in the guild's favour, and the girl need not go anywhere.

It troubled him, _excited_ him, to think of how much he wanted her to stay, her past be damned.

For now, there were arrangements to make. It seemed a visit to the alchemist was in order.

* * *

...

* * *

Maddie returned the following night.

He watched from the shadows as she came gracefully down the ladder, bringing a burst of cold winter with her. Watched, too, as she ignored everyone who crossed her path, those who offered smiles, greetings, friendship. She glanced around once, but seemed not to find who or what she sought, because she put her head down, eyes to the floor, and made her way out of the Cistern as fast as she could. She went in the direction of the Flagon, most likely to see Delvin about the finished job. All business. He liked that about her.

Brynjolf waited. Now that she'd returned, he was in no hurry. He knew she would come looking for him sooner or later. After such a kiss as they'd shared, how could she not? And just to make sure, he'd left her a little gift on her bed. Nothing telling, of course, but enough to spark her curiosity, if he was right about her, and if he wasn't, what harm could such a little thing do?

No one bothered him as he lounged in the shadows, arms folded over his chest; they all knew what Maddie's return meant. What was more, they recognized that look in his eye, and none of them would dare cross it and invite his displeasure. The lonesome peace was rejuvenating after the turmoil of the past few days, and the quiet was most welcome. He could feel a familiar calm settling down inside him, undamaged by all the trouble and uncertainty without. For a moment, he felt untouchable. For a moment, he felt as though he could take on the world.

It was too bad, really, that it wasn't to last.

He was watching the narrow corridor that led to the Flagon when Maddie finally appeared again, her hood down, her fiery hair tied neatly back. Again, she did all she could to avoid being seen, her eyes ever to the floor. It was a wonder she didn't run into anything or anyone; the Cistern was far from deserted, after all. Not for the first time, Brynjolf found himself wondering what kind of life she'd led that she went so far out of her way to keep out of sight and out of mind. The girl could teach him a thing or two about keeping secrets.

She approached the bed in her little corner of the Cistern, and stopped dead. He held his breath. She picked up the flower, gently turning the stem between her fingers, her face paling, her expression changing to one of abject confusion and horror, and he smiled. That was when he knew he was right. That was when he knew he had her. And while she stared at his gift, her sweet lips parted in surprise, he stepped out of his hiding place and went to her, reaching her just as she dropped the little sprig of Dragon's Tongue on the bed as if it were poisonous.

"Welcome home, lass," he said, grinning as he basked in her discomfiture. Her mouth snapped closed, her lips pressing together tightly as if to hold back an argument, when he knew full well she had nothing at all to say. He stepped past her, making sure to brush her shoulder lightly with his own as he reached down and snatched up the harmless little blossom that stood for so many dangerous things. He offered it to her again, holding it up before her, watching as those dark, dark eyes turned to glass, windows through which he could see her very soul.

And by the Gods, was she afraid.

That, he decided, wouldn't do at all. He hadn't intended to frighten her, only to put her on her guard. He didn't feel any guilt, however, even as he looked down into her drawn face and saw the mistrust his little trick had sown. After decades of exploiting the gullible and the weak to better his own fortunes, he wasn't entirely sure there was any shame left in him at all. Which, he mused, was probably a terrible thing.

"I think it's time we had a bit of a heart to heart," he said, gentling his voice as best as he was able, though he doubt she noticed, tense as she was. "Don't you agree, little dragon?"

The endearment – if it could indeed be called that – brought her around. She blinked, and that far away, frightened look was gone; no longer was she a rabbit caught in a trap. A little colour returned to her cheeks, two pink splotches marring her pale face. She took a deep breath, drawing herself up, and she nodded.

"Not here," she said, finally taking the sprig of Dragon's Tongue from him. She glared at him as she crushed it in her fist, her eyes never leaving his as she let the petals fall to the floor. "Let's take an evening stroll, shall we? I could do with some air."

"After you," he said, his arm sweeping before him in a gentlemanly gesture he thought might bring a smile to her lips, but he was sorely disappointed. It didn't bother him. Never had he been more sure that he had the upper-hand. Perhaps it was his pride taking control in that moment, because he thought it would be best to prove it to her. It didn't occur to him then that his pride had always been his greatest weakness; no, he was too arrogant for that.

As they crossed the Cistern, they passed a small figure lingering at the edge of the pool. His shoulders were hunched, his hood up and his head down, and he was trying his very damnedest not to be noticed and doing a very good job of it. Brynjolf, however, had sharp eyes that missed nothing; sadly, the same could not be said for the girl. She walked right by him; Etienne Rarnis, the man who'd inadvertently dragged her into guild business all those months ago. Without him, Brynjolf never would have given her a pointless marketplace job in exchange for information; without Etienne's story, she would have paid for her information with gold like everyone else, and he would have sent her on her way, none the wiser, never knowing...

"A moment, lass," Brynjolf said. Maddie stopped, and turned to him. "Have you met Etienne yet?"

She stiffened, and though he wouldn't have thought it possible, she paled even more until she was almost white as the snow swirling outside. She recovered quickly, her eyes brightening as she offered a warm smile. A practised smile. It was masterfully done, and Brynjolf could not help but be impressed.

"No, I have not," she said, and her voice betrayed nothing at all. She sounded happy, pleased, as if not a thing in the world was wrong, as if she hadn't been avoiding the other thieves like a plague. "Hello, Etienne."

Rarnis glanced up at her with genuine interest, looking a little shocked that anyone was bothering to talk to him. Since his kidnapping and miraculous escape from the Thalmor, most everyone thought him cursed, bad luck walking, and refused to meet his eye. "Hello," he said quietly. "New, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said with an amiable laugh. "If only someone would mention that to Mercer."

"Oh," Etienne breathed, realization dawning. "You're the Goldenglow girl."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Is that what they're calling me? Wonderful. Now if you'll excuse me, I have things to do. It was nice meeting you." And she turned on her heel and marched out of the Cistern.

Brynjolf almost laughed. "There's a good lad," he said, patting Etienne on the shoulder and flashing him a smile before leaving him bewildered. He chased after Maddie, catching her on the other side of the door to the Flagon, where she waited for him in that secret bit of corridor behind the cupboard.

She was ready for him. "You have some nerve," she said accusingly, poking him squarely in the chest.

Now he did laugh, catching her hand in his own and holding it fast when she tried to pull away. Gods above, it was good to see some life in her after so many days of the quiet mouse who wanted nothing more than to hide. The light cast from the brazier reflected in her dark eyes, giving them a fierce, untamed quality, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to pull her close and steal from her lips a wild and eager kiss, to feel that fire burning within her for himself, no matter the danger of being utterly consumed by it. But he was a man who maintained more self-control than one would think a thief could possess, and he suppressed his desire.

"I'm nothing but nerve, lass," he said. "Comes in handy, my line of work." Looking around, he saw that the room to their left was empty, the room shared by Vekel and Tonilia. He pulled her into a shadowed corner where they might find some privacy, effectively boxing her in. He wasn't about to walk through the Flagon, where too many pairs of eyes would see them leaving for the Ratway together. He was no fool, and neither were his fellow thieves. Talk was the last thing he needed, especially with all the attention the girl had drawn to herself when she'd robbed Goldenglow during a dragon attack. Besides, it was the dead of winter and bloody cold in the Ratway.

"Is it safe here?" she asked, reaching up on her toes to look over his shoulder. "Won't we be overheard?"

"Footsteps echo loudly down here. We'll hear them long before they can hear us," he pointed out. "Now, lass, I believe you've got quite a bit of explaining to do."

"There's nothing to explain," she said, frowning. "You discovered my secret. I suppose you think you're clever."

"Oh, I know I'm clever," he said, chuckling. "You weren't exactly trying to cover your tracks, now were you? Everyone in the city knows by now that the Dragonborn was on the island the other night, thanks to the guards and their gossip. Giving me those bones and telling me it was part of _your_ job? You all but told me yourself. No, that's not what I want to know."

"Then what is it?" she asked, sticking out her chin. She was challenging him, and he loved it, loved how difficult and proud she was, loved how she kept him on his toes. She was trouble, and here he was encouraging her when he should have been telling her to pack her bags and never darken his doorway again. Would he never learn?

"I want to know why you left him," he said simply. "And I want to know, once and for all, why the one you ran to was me. The truth, this time. I deserve that much, lass, don't you think? If we're going to continue working together."

She sighed. Oh, all the breath she had went into that sigh, her eyes closing as if she wished she would never have to draw another. "How did you know?" she asked, all that pride gone now as she lowered her face in shame.

"Rumour travels on swift wings, and it reaches us here, even underground," he told her. "All of the nine holds have heard the tale of the bear and the dragon. Wasn't hard to put the pieces together." He tapped two fingers against his temple. "Clever, remember?" When she still refused to look at him, he put his hand on her chin and raised her eyes to his, only to find them filled with tears. "I don't judge you, Maddie. You're not the first to leave a lover in the night. Was he cruel to you?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, he wasn't cruel to me, though perhaps it would have been better if he was. Easier." A tear fell, leaving a gossamer trail down her cheek, and against all common sense, against every better judgement he had, Brynjolf began to feel guilty for pushing her; it was a strange feeling, foreign, and he didn't like it. So he ignored it, and pressed.

"Tell me what that means, lass," he said, however gently he could while still being firm. He couldn't relent, not now. He had to know, if only for the sake of the guild; he had to know what sort of danger he'd blindly put them in when he'd accepted this runaway, this deserter, into the fold.

She took a deep breath, swiping absently at her cheek. "It means I wasn't born in Skyrim," she said. "Wasn't born here, wasn't raised here. My father was, though, but I never met him; he died in the fight to retake the Reach after the Great War, before I was born. He didn't even know about me, my mother never had the chance to tell him, and until six months ago, I'd never even given a thought to coming here. It was kind of a spontaneous decision. Stupid, really. I was determined to forge my own destiny, like the hero in a story." She laughed. "All I found was trouble. I guess I have a knack for it. Dragons and war, just my luck."

"You joined the fight because of your father," he said, the wheels inside his head turning as more pieces fell into place. The picture he'd always had of her began to change; it was the personal touch, the little details. Things he had always kept himself far away from. Why was it so different with her?

"More or less," she said with a shrug. "I'd gotten myself involved with – with some people that I needed to distance myself from, so I decided to go into hiding. I know, I know, bad habit. I thought that joining up would make me anonymous. I hadn't taken into account that Ulfric already knew who I was."

Brynjolf's brow furrowed. "How's that, then?"

"That's a long story," she said evasively, looking down at her feet. "And not one I want to tell right now. Just know that almost overnight, I was a soldier, a symbol, an advisor. Next a lover, then a thane."

"A _thane_?"

"Not the point," she said shortly. "If you know the tale of the bear and the dragon, as you put it, then you know that he meant to make me his wife, and if he'd won the war, his queen. Isn't that how it goes?"

"Aye," he said gravely. "Gods willing, the Empire quashes this rebellion and he never takes the throne."

She looked up at him, curious. "Do you have a stake in the war?"

"Imperials are good for business," he said, shrugging. Never mind that it was Maven's business the war was interfering with. The guild wasn't affected one way or the other. "None of this explains why you left him, or why you deserted the cause. Death or glory, isn't it?"

The girl sighed again, her lips twisted wryly, and she watched him carefully, as if trying to decided in that moment if she could trust him, as if it were not a decision she had come to long ago. "I was to go to the Reach," she said finally, quietly, "to persuade a man of some influence to... to _help_ Ulfric's cause, and he did, however reluctantly. I can be very persuasive when I want to be. But –" Here she paused, shaking her head at her own thoughts. "But in exchange, he told me truths about Ulfric that you'll only hear spoken freely in Markarth. Dark things. Ugly things. _Violent_ things."

Brynjolf nodded, and kept his silence, for there was nothing to tell her. He'd always made it his business to know everything he could about everyone who was anyone in Skyrim. It helped him keep the guild a step ahead, helped him avoid trouble, or to find it if it was to his advantage. He knew all about Ulfric's campaign in the Reach all those years ago, what had come to be known as the Markarth Incident. He knew how the story ended. He could only imagine the betrayal she'd felt, learning of it all for the first time, her already in his bed, him already in her heart.

"I was going to confront him," she said, leaning back against the wall of their shadowy corner, as if recounting her tale was wearing her out. She watched him with sad eyes. "Before I'd left Windhelm, I'd promised him the Reach, and I meant to keep my word, to go to him and tell him that it had cost him my loyalty – and my love."

"What changed your mind?" he asked, so caught up in her story now that there was no turning away.

She took her time in answering him, the silence between them stretching on, the quiet filled with all those small sounds that were so familiar to him, the dripping of water, the echoing of far-off voices, the scraping of restless feet against the stone. Only now, those feet were his own as he shifted uncomfortably while waiting for her to continue, wondering if he truly wanted to know what had driven her straight to his guild and into his arms. But when she looked up at him with the smallest of smiles, he realized that the catalyst didn't matter, not really, not when she was the consequence.

"We were supposed to ambush an armed caravan, carrying silver and weapons," she said. "Instead, we were ambushed by the Forsworn in the hills. Most of the others with me were killed; maybe all of them, I don't know." She shook her head; more tears threatened, he could hear them in her voice.

"But you escaped."

"I was spared."

"Spared? By the Forsworn?" It went against every tale he'd ever heard told of the brutal and merciless natives of the Reach. Something wasn't right about what she told him, he knew it right away, _felt_ it – it nagged at him, gnawed at him, but he could not for the life of him put his finger on what it was.

"I still don't understand it myself," she said. "There's no sense in it. I was wounded. One of their barbaric blades caught me here." She touched a hand to her side, the very place he'd seen the jagged scar marring her fair skin from ribcage to waist the night of the Goldenglow job, when he'd walked in on her as she changed her dress. "By all rights, they should have killed me. Instead, they let me go. I made it as far as Rorikstead before I couldn't – I don't remember much of what happened after, but a boy named Erik found me. He took me to a mage, who healed me. He gave me a place to rest and recover."

"Kind of him."

"The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I would have bled to death if not for him. Or maybe frozen to death, alone on the road. But by some miracle..." She trailed off, leaning her head back and looking at the ceiling, searching for consolation amongst the stones. "I don't know what he was doing on the road that night, but he was, and it saved my life."

"Maybe you're just lucky," Brynjolf suggested, one of the most honest things he'd ever told her, because he wholly believed it. He was rewarded with a smile, one that was bright and true.

"Maybe," she said, her smile lingering but a moment longer before it faded and she grew serious again. "It was in Rorikstead that I decided against returning to Windhelm. I couldn't face him, not after – I just couldn't. And I couldn't stay in Rorikstead. Whiterun holds nothing for me."

She'd brought the tale round to the present. Brynjolf knew what came next. "And so with nowhere else to go, you came to me, because I'd offered you a place with the guild the first time we met."

"You told me," she said, drawing a shaky breath, "that if I ever needed anything, anything at all, that I knew where to find you. And so I came to Riften without a second thought, because what I needed most of all was a place to hide and forget who I was. I knew you could protect me while I tried. That was no lie."

Brynjolf laughed, a harsh and disbelieving sound. "Aye, I thought I could before I knew what was behind you," he said. "Do you truly expect me to keep the war, the Thalmor, and the dragons at bay? Do you really have so much faith in me, lass?"

"I want to," she said, tipping her head back to look at him, the depths of her dark eyes unreadable. He didn't know what to make of her. She'd walked into this room ready to tear a strip off him, and now here she was, bleeding tears from wounds he'd ripped open with his callous disregard, bearing her heart to him while he made demand after demand of her. He knew he was supposed to send her to Maven in the morning, but he decided then that it could wait. The whole damned world could wait. Just for the night.

He brought his hands to her face, one on either side of her jaw, his big fingers splayed across her cold cheeks, and bent down to kiss her, because it was the only thing he could think to do, the only way to bring her story to an end he could come to terms with. She pushed up on her toes, her arms coming around his neck to draw him closer, her sweet lips and mischievous tongue playing against his, gentle and open and so very willing.

And as he held her in his arms, he thought of all the forces that conspired against her, against him as her ally, her protector, the only man in the world who knew who and what she truly was. And when he pulled away, looking down into her lovely face, the face the illusionist had given her to better hide her in his den of thieves, he heard the mage's words echoing in his head as if for the first time.

_"That one has too much of the Reach in her to be trusted. She will bring you and your guild nothing but ruin and despair."_

His arms tightened around her as Maddie rested her head against his chest. She knew nothing of the sculptor's warning; she knew nothing of his dark thoughts. In that moment, he would have moved the stars to keep those dark thoughts, and his countless doubts, from her.

He was a fool to think he could.


	12. Both Ends of the Bargain

She was in over her head.

What was worse, not only was she _hopelessly_ in too deep, but with every day that passed, she was sinking deeper. Willingly. And if she wasn't careful, soon she would lose her footing. Soon, she would drown.

It all started – no, that wasn't right. There was no start, no definitive beginning, because every choice she'd ever made was a consequence of a choice that had come before, going back and back into her childhood, and even then... even then, before she'd been born, her life and her story was preordained, written in the stars. The tragedy of her mother and father was proof enough of that, and the accident of her birth was no accident at all.

But there was abeginning, there hadto be, though damned if she could sort it out, untangle that one moment from all the others, even if she spent the rest of her days pulling at knots and loose threads until everything made sense. Was it her selfish and cowardly decision to desert Ulfric's cause that had set her on this path? Or perhaps the beginning was Rorikstead, lying weak and wounded in a stranger's bed, when she'd convinced herself that Brynjolf's offer was the safest bet?

Fool that she'd been to think his help would come with no strings attached at all.

No. No, the moment, the irrevocable, unforgivable moment had come to pass in the temple of Mara, the one place she'd avoided all her life. Baseborn, conceived outside the loving arms of Mara's embrace, it was a secret shame that had always kept those doors closed to her. Yet it was to Mara she had gone to pray, to feel some connection with her dear _maman,_ Arkay keep her. How telling that she had not gone to the shrine of Talos to seek her guidance. She wondered how things might have gone differently had gone to kneel in the snow to pray.

But if she knew one thing, it was that there was no changing the past. What was done, was done.

It was in the temple of Mara where she had sat down upon the wooden pew, still wrapped in her snowy cloak, and looked into the face of the weeping statue; it was in the temple of Mara where Brynjolf found her. Armed with words and promises and charm, he'd come ready to strike his bargain – and reluctantly, she'd agreed, and in doing so, she had sealed both of their fates. This, Madeline knew with stone cold certainty, for she was not so foolish as to believe they were not caught up in each other's fortunes, not after the Thalmor in the Ratway, not after Goldenglow. For good or for ill, she and the thief were bound.

Though... she was a thief now, too; she often needed to remind herself of this fact. Oh, how proud her _grand-mère_ would be!

She hadn't told Brynjolf about her family back in Evermore, who had by now, she was sure, disinherited her and disavowed all knowledge of her existence. Nor had she told Brynjolf about the merchant's son to whom she'd been briefly betrothed, the boy whose name she'd already forgotten. In fact, thinking back on it, she'd told Brynjolf very little, considering all there was to tell. About her _maman_ , gentle and sweet and dead now these three years; about her father, the man she'd never met, killed in the Reach during the final days of the Forsworn uprising whilst she was but a quickening in her mother's womb. Madeline didn't even know his name. Her mother had rarely spoken of him; his name was a curse beneath her _grand-mère's_ roof, and he was only ever called 'the archer'...

No, these were stories she never shared with anyone; these were hers alone to keep. Once, she'd thought to lay down these truths at Ulfric's feet, her lover, her commander, her king. Instead, she'd gone to ground – literally. Running and hiding like the coward she was, the only two things she was truly, consistently good at.

The guild had welcomed her with open arms, her past be damned. Since her arrival, she'd done little to accept their kindness, let alone repay it, avoiding them when she could and ignoring them the rest of the time. Mercer had reluctantly let her in, Brynjolf and Delvin had made up their minds to trust her, and that was that, at least insofar as the others were concerned. Even sly, sneering Vex had done what she could to help Madeline with the Goldenglow job. Only the guild master, Mercer Frey, still looked at her with suspicion and contempt – but that had not stopped him from giving her some of the most arduous, complicated, and dangerous jobs the guild had to offer. Madeline still wasn't wholly convinced he wasn't trying to outright kill her.

Still, this was her place now, her home. This was the bed she'd made. And it was this bed she woke in the morning after she'd returned from Whiterun. She awoke to the sight of stone and the sound of water, and for the first time since her arrival, she did not question why she was there, nor did she wish she was elsewhere. For better or worse, she was where she'd chosen to be, and there was peace in that. She was content.

Of course, it was not to last.

Brynjolf came to find her when she was in the Flagon taking her breakfast. She always rose early, a lingering habit, and not one she was eager to break. The cistern was almost serene in the early hours of the morning, when all the other thieves were sleeping off their late-night adventures, and the Flagon was almost deserted. She'd always enjoyed the quiet, and Brynjolf, it seemed, was of a like mind. She smiled at the sight of him – her first mistake, giving in to that warm that spread from her face straight down to her toes. He sat down in the chair across from her with a leisurely grace, looking around the Flagon as if he owned the place; she thought that perhaps he looked at the whole world that way, and she found herself smiling all the wider – her second mistake.

"Ah, good morning, lass," he said, winking at her as he flagged Vekel over. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough." She tried her best to compose herself as the tavern master came over with Brynjolf's meal. It was the same fare she'd received, with the notable exception of being accompanied by a bottle of Black-Briar mead. She raised an eyebrow. "A little early, isn't it?"

"Never," said Brynjolf, laughing. "In what other way would a true Nord start his day when there's work to be done?"

"A fair point," she conceded, looking down at her own mead-free breakfast. Her father had been a Nord, a lamentable fact her _grand-mère_ had never let her forget, but he had not passed on that specific predilection.

"You may want a drink yourself," Brynjolf said, as if aware of her musing. Her head snapped back up, certain he was teasing, but though she found him smirking, there was a dead seriousness in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. "You're off to see Maven Black-Briar. She'll be waiting for you at the Bee and Barb."

"No," she said, and stopped cold. She hadn't meant to _say_ it, that immediate, passionate reaction; it had just slipped out. She flushed with embarrassment, and bit down on her tongue, vowing to say no more. In her experience, however, Brynjolf was not the type of man to leave well enough alone, and this was no exception.

"I'm sorry, lass, but 'no' isn't an option," he said, at least having the grace to look contrite. "She's asked for you by name."

"She asked for the Goldenglow girl?" she grumbled, folding her arms petulantly over her chest.

"No, just the fool who nearly burned it to the ground." There was an edge in his voice, a hard glint in his green eyes, one that brooked no argument, but she'd never been one to mind her superiors. She opened her mouth, argument at the ready – _it was a bloody dragon –_ but Brynjolf held up a hand before she could speak, and against her better judgement, she held her tongue. "I know what happened at Goldenglow wasn't your fault, but you'll be hard pressed to convince anyone else of that fact, and trying would be a waste of time."

Madeline let go an exasperated breath. "Then what would you have me do? Fall on my knees and beg forgiveness for a dragon attack?"

Brynjolf smirked, clearly amused. "You won't have to go to your knees, lass. But yes, a little humility never hurts when Maven is concerned."

"Will I come out of there alive?" she wondered aloud, frowning.

Brynjolf watched her thoughtfully for a moment. She tried her best not to fidget under that intense gaze, his green eyes shifting over her face, the set of her shoulders, her arms firmly crossed. In defiance, she stuck out her chin, matching his stare when she caught his eyes again, refusing to look down or away. It was then he smiled his strange, enigmatic smile, the one that made her think he was about to take her for all she had, and it troubled her more than it should, the realization of just how much she wanted to let him.

"It's just business," he said finally, with a shrug of his shoulders that gave nothing away.

Madeline sighed, and looked down at her half-eaten breakfast, her appetite now completely gone. Resigned to this new fate, she pushed her plate away. When she stood, Brynjolf also rose to his feet, a misplaced gentlemanly gesture.

"I've gone and ruined your day, haven't I?" he asked, not sounding sorry about it in the least.

"Utterly," she said with as much indifference as she could muster.

"I'll make it up to you," he said quietly, leaning in toward her so he would not be overheard. "You have my word, lass."

Madeline felt a fierce heat rising in her cheeks, and a familiar knot twisting in her belly. She gathered her things and left the Flagon by way of the Cistern, there to buckle herself into her guild leathers and fetch her cloak.

Her heart was pounding a dirge in her throat as she made her way through the snowy streets of Riften. It was still early enough that the marketplace was all but empty of patrons. The shopkeepers eyed her warily as she cut through the plaza to shorten her walk. All she could do was tighten her cloak about herself and walk a little faster. Only the old beggar openly acknowledged her presence; huddled beneath a threadbare blanket in the shadow of the stall Brynjolf had once used to run his confidence schemes, the beggar muttered veiled insults at her as she went past. She paid him a septim for his silence, and hurried to the warmth of the inn.

The Bee and Barb smelled of honey and fresh-baked bread. The Argonian proprietors turned to the sound of the door with happy greetings, but these were cut short at the sight of her. Madeline tugged her hood down a little further to better hide the flush that rose in her face, less from the cold and more from the shame she felt for her part in the guild's extortions. After all, it hadn't been that long ago that she'd come collecting, forever losing her welcome at the establishment.

As she went up the stairs to escape the contemptuous stares of Keerava and Talen-Jei, she tried to calm the sickened feeling that had settled like a stone in her stomach. She pushed her hood back and did what she could to straighten the unruly auburn waves the sculptor had given her, ignoring the tremble in her hands as the effects of the cold outside. She was not afraid of Maven Black-Briar. She had faced frost trolls, she had faced dragons, she had faced the Bear of Eastmarch in his blackest of tempers; she refused to be afraid of an old woman like Maven Black-Briar.

Her third mistake – and it wasn't even midday yet.

Maven was no stranger to her, though Madeline was coming as a stranger, herself. The last and only time their paths had crossed, Madeline had been pretending to be someone she was not, a foreshadow that was not lost on her now. Dressed in borrowed clothes, carrying a borrowed invitation, and driven by a borrowed purpose, Madeline had used Delphine's cloak-and-dagger influence to infiltrate the Thalmor embassy – a disastrous mission that had set her on the path to Ulfric's fight against the elves... and to Brynjolf's acquaintance. Madeline would never have dreamed then all the things that would come to pass because of that night. Surrounded by Dominion agents and up to her ears in trouble, her only concern had been getting out of the embassy unnoticed, and alive. But she hadn't gone unnoticed; Maven Black-Briar had known her for the imposter she was with a single glance, casually threatening to unmask her in the most heartless, indifferent way. Madeline had never forgotten those cold eyes, or that sneering face.

Maven hadn't changed a bit. She stood at a table tucked into a shadowy corner, sorting through papers, marking the occasional sheet with the quill in her hand. When she turned, she looked down her nose at Madeline as she approached, disdain written all over her noble face. Yet, Madeline did not see the spark of recognition in the matriarch's eyes. As far as appearances went, she was a stranger coming before the old woman, and all the better. She knew without doubt that Maven would reveal her to Mercer in an instant, a passing courtesy before alerting the Thalmor to the dragon hiding in the Ratway.

"So you're the one who burned down Goldenglow Estate," Maven said scathingly. She threw down the quill and shook her handful of papers at Madeline. "Do you have any idea what that little stunt you pulled is going to cost me?" She didn't wait for a response; just as well, as Madeline didn't have one. "I'm amazed you even bothered to show your face here."

Any doubts Madeline may have had about Maven were resolved in that moment, but she knew her place, and knew that her opinions were not welcome, let alone important. She was reminded so strongly of her _grand-mère_ in that moment that she almost felt homesick. "My apologies, Lady Maven," she said as politely as she could, summoning her most repentant look; while thinking of her _grand-mère_ , it wasn't difficult.

Maven levelled her with a suspicious glare, and Madeline found herself shrinking back a step. "The only reason we're having this conversation is due to Brynjolf's assurance you won't botch another assignment," the old woman said, turning her back coldly to Madeline and going back to her papers. "He claims you possess some sort of uncanny aptitude for your line of work. Quite frankly, I find that hard to believe."

Madeline was taken aback. While Maven had meant to insult her, she found herself quite the opposite; the old woman's revelation of Brynjolf's faith in her left her shaken, touched to her very core. Never mind that his admiration was misplaced; being good at something and enjoying doing it were two very different things, after all.

"I'm sorry you're disappointed."

Maven scoffed as she took up her quill again. "Once again, Brynjolf sends me someone with no backbone, no determination," she said as she made a few stabbing movements with the quill that Madeline supposed was meant to be a signature. "I was beginning to think he was running some sort of beggar's guild over there."

"You have no faith in the guild?" Though she knew better than to ask, Madeline's curiosity got the better of her. It annoyed her, how slighted she felt at Maven's disregard of the guild – annoyed, and worried. She remembered the contentment she'd felt that morning when she'd woken in the Cistern, how settled her life had seemed, and all of a sudden the belts of her armour began to feel a little too tight.

" _Faith_?" Maven asked, incredulous, as if the very word was foreign to her. "I don't have faith in anyone. All I care about is cause and effect. Did the job get done and was it done correctly. There is no grey area." The sidelong look she shot at Madeline was dark and accusatory.

"You won't have that problem with me," Madeline said. _Not again, at least,_ she added silently. She tried to emanate a confidence she did not wholly feel. She felt as though she was being tested, especially when Maven fixed her with an appraising look – but by the way the old woman curled up her lip at her, it was clear she had been found especially wanting.

"We shall see," Maven said, sounding as though she'd already made up her mind. But any further doubts she had, she kept to herself. Finished with her lecture, Maven outlined the job that Madeline was to be assigned, a job she had not even agreed to take in the first place, a job involving more honey and fewer bees – and hopefully, fewer dragons.

Madeline left the Bee and Barb in a huff. Anger bubbled up inside of her, sticking in her throat like nettles, so thick she fancied she might choke on it. Choke and die and never worry again about the guild or gold or Maven or her own damn misery. None of this was what she wanted; none of it was what she'd bargained for, and only one man could answer for it.

She was storming by the time she reached the Cistern. She looked around, but Brynjolf was nowhere to be seen. She caught the elbow of the first person she knew by name. Sapphire raised a haughty eyebrow, smirking as she pointed her in the direction of the training room. Madeline didn't even stop long enough to thank her.

She found Brynjolf presiding over two other thieves as they practised with their daggers. Her sudden appearance caused them all to pause, blades suspended in mid-air, death pending.

"Out," she snapped. The two men looked to Brynjolf, who nodded. They left without a word, casting curious glances over their shoulders as they went.

"You'll make us the talk of the guild yet, lass," Brynjolf said smugly. "They'll think we're having a lover's quarrel in here."

"We're not lovers."

"More's the pity."

His solemn lament caught her off-guard, but she was not about to be deterred. "Maven's sending me to Whiterun," she informed him, watching his face for some sort of recognition of her temper, but ever the master thief, he stayed impassive, without even the smallest smirk to betray him. "I'm to help one of her men with the meadery there," she continued. "She wants to take it over."

"Now, stop there," Brynjolf said. "This is between you and Maven, and that's the way I'd prefer to keep it, if you don't mind."

"I _do_ mind," she said. "I mind very much. This was not part of our bargain."

"Is that so?" He grinned down at her, and she resisted the urge to step back from him, as if distance could be used as a shield against his charms. "If I remember correctly, lass, you agreed to join the guild in exchange for a place to hide. Plain and simple. Now what, exactly, was not part of our bargain?"

"Don't play the fool with me," she said, shaking her head. "These are not the quiet jobs you promised me, changing ledgers and rearranging shipments. Why am I being singled out like this, Brynjolf? Why has Maven set me to a new task when I failed so horribly at the last one?" She didn't know why she bothered even to ask; she expected him to shrug her off, to laugh, to put his steady hands on her shoulders and reassure her that these problems she saw were only in her head.

Instead, she saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes, a shift so imperceptible, so fleeting that it could have been a trick of the torchlight, there and then not, but she knew that she'd seen it.

And it made her afraid.

He recovered quickly, flashing her a disarming smile, one that might have caused her knees to knock were she not so tense. And then he did all that she'd expected him to do; he laughed off her worries as if they were nothing, and reached out to place gentle hands on her arms so that she could not turn away from him.

"Maddie," he said, looking down at her with solemn eyes. "We take no oaths here. You are free to stay or leave. The choice has always been yours."

"I've made my choice."

"Then what are you fretting over?"

"It's too much, Brynjolf."

"Too much? I don't –"

"Yes. All of it. The guild, the jobs, Mercer, and now Maven. And – and _you_ ," she said, looking down at her feet, unable to bear the sight of him as she revealed to him the truth of it, what was really in her heart, what kept her up at night, what made her want to run.

"I feel as though I've done this all before, Bryn; as though I know how this story ends. I'm getting too involved and it terrifies me."

Silence descended then, heavy and merciless, and she would have had him shout and rave if only to drown out the pounding of her heart, but the fate he had in store for her would never be so kind. Instead, he let her go, his hands dropping as if she'd burned him. A strange detachment came over his face, smoothing out the creases of worry upon his brow, colouring his eyes with distance and loss.

"Well, that's something I can't help you with, lass," he said evenly. "You say you've made your choice, but your eyes tell a different story. Come to me when you've reconciled the two."

"Bryn, wait." She reached out to grab his arm as he turned away. "Please."

He shrugged her off callously. "I'm sure Maven wishes you to be in Whiterun," he said shortly. "Not wasting time here." And with that, he walked away, leaving her alone in the training room to curse her stupid tongue, and his bloody stubborn pride.

Nothing good ever came from following her heart, and even worse from speaking her mind. When would she ever learn?

 

* * *

...

* * *

 

Madeline spent the next two days on the road, angry at Brynjolf, herself, and the whole damn world.

She wanted to blame him. She truly did. The trouble, however, lay solely with her, and she knew it. Her life was her own, as was her freedom, and the choice to give herself over to Brynjolf and his guild had been hers, and hers alone. Yet she could not stand by that decision. Little Maddie, always with one eye on the door, one foot out of it, ready to run like a spooked rabbit.

Oh, little rabbit heart, where shall you find yourself, when all your running is done?

She didn't know, but she hoped. Fool that she was, she clung to the faintest, most desperate hope that she had finally found her place. The guild could be her home, her family. Her time of running could be over. And no matter how she tried to convince herself she had to prove it to them, she knew deep down in her heart that the only person she had to prove it to was herself.

True winter had finally settled across Skyrim. It made the travel difficult, enough so at least that she regretted not hiring a carriage to save her legs the work. Still, she was able to enjoy the journey in the relative peace she always found during her long walkabouts in this country of ice and snow. Evening Star had always been her favourite month, the month of her birth, of darkness and long nights, of life and new beginnings. Her natal day was fast approaching. It was her twenty-fifth winter, and never had she been more unsure of the path she'd chosen.

It seemed an odd declaration, considering how many times she'd had those very same thoughts over the course of the past year, first in Cyrodiil, and now in Skyrim. Since that very first step over the border, life had grown harder, her choices bolder, and the difference between right and wrong more difficult to ascertain. Despite what Maven Black-Briar had proclaimed, there _was_ a grey area, and time and time again, Madeline became hopelessly lost in it.

Whiterun, however, was no grey area. Colour those days black, and as red as the blood painting the snow on that fateful day. Blood on her hands that would never come clean, the blood she had bathed in at the bear's behest, her days as his dragon queen. Black was her betrayal of Balgruuf, the shadow of pain in his eyes when she'd come up those steps, her bow in hand, as her brothers under the blue banner had slaughtered his guards and taken his household prisoner. Balgruuf, who had always treated her with kindness, opening his heart and his arms to her, as if she were more than a half-blooded bastard child from the Rock, too far from home and unwelcome in the cold, unforgiving land of her father. He had courted her, chased her, would have made her thane and wife, but then she had appeared on his threshold, another man's axe to lay at his feet as gift and warning, and the smile had gone out of his eyes, the warmth in his voice giving over to icy courtesy, and she was welcome no more in his city.

Perhaps then a good thing that Whiterun was no longer his city.

Twilight was descending when Madeline came down out of the foothills onto the sprawling, snow-blanketed plains. The sky was washed with streaks of rose and pale gold. The winter had not yet taken hold of the falls, and the thunderous rush of their waters was a welcome companion as she walked the winding road out of the woods. By the time she made her way to the gates of the city, full dark had fallen as the moons and the stars rose high. It was a clear night, a cold night, beautiful in its way, but Madeline had no love for it.

The Stormcloak guards warned the newcomer against making trouble in their city, never knowing who it was standing in their midst. Would they fall to their knees in reverence and fear if they knew, she wondered, or would they raise the alarm and draw their weapons, there to take her back to Ulfric in chains. She did not care to find out, but she pushed her hood down in defiance to let them see her face, the colour the cold brought to her cheeks, the fire she knew burned in her eyes.

No one knew her. No one paid her any mind at all.

She entered the inn through the kitchen door that was always unlocked, and she came face-to-face with someone who _did_ recognize her, the same man who'd sat idly by while she played with the numbers in Hulda's books. His knife-thin lips stretched into a mockery of a smile, unpleasantly contorting his gaunt and grey face.

"How did I know it was going to be you?" Mallus mused aloud, leaning back in his chair and taking up a bottle from the table. As he put it to his lips, Madeline noticed that it was a bottle of Honningbrew mead, and she wondered just what Maven would think to see such a thing.

"You were expecting me, then," Madeline said as she sat down in the chair opposite him.

"I've made it a habit never to question Maven, but this time, she's got me wondering," he said, taking another long pull from the bottle; she watched the apple of his throat bob with every swallow. When he was finished making her wait, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a nasty gleam in his eye. "I'm going to keep this short because we've got a lot to do."

Madeline raised an eyebrow, a familiar unhappy twist coming to her lips. Short, indeed. It was never short, just as it was never simple, just as it was never safe. She knew this story by heart, and it never ended well. Yet, she listened politely all the same as her pale, sneering new partner outlined the rest of Maven's brilliant plan: destroy the reputation of her hard-working competition and steal his meadery right out from underneath of him. When Ulfric's ambition had brought the war to the walls of the city, Maven had been forced to put her machinations aside until the time was right. The foundations had already been laid, and now here was Madeline, another piece on the board, part of a game she had no personal stake in. Perhaps that was just as well. All she had to do was come in and execute the final steps from the shadows. Skeevers and poison and mead, how unsavoury.

Still, part of her couldn't help but admire the genius of Maven's plan. She had bought the loyalty of Sabjorn's workers right out from underneath of him, and then set to work; quietly orchestrating an infestation, overrunning his business with pests and problems, and now she would infiltrate his meadery with her own people to finish the job. When all was said and done, she could buy the whole place for the tiniest fraction of the gold Sabjorn had put down to get the operation off the ground. Maven could eliminate the competition and ruin the investments of his private partner in one fell blow. A lesson hard learned for those who went up against the Black-Briars, but for Maven, the joy was in the teaching.

And so Madeline set about playing her part.

Bright and early the next morning, when the mist still lay heavy upon the ground and most of Whiterun's law-abiding citizens were still huddled next to their hearths, Madeline made her way down to the meadery. She knew she had until the evening, when the captain of Whiterun's guard would walk the same road she did to a tasting of Sabjorn's latest masterpiece, the Honningbrew Reserve.

She found Sabjorn fretting over a dead skeever in his reception room, and with all the charm and gumption she could muster, she did as she'd been instructed and offered her services to rid his meadery of vermin, once and for all – and while she was at it, she would slip a little poison powder into the brewing vat Mallus had already marked for her. Not enough to kill anyone, but enough to burn and blister the tongue, and put Sabjorn in jail for a long time.

Madeline might have felt remorseful about what she was doing to Sabjorn if the man wasn't so insufferable, or so cheap. It didn't start out that way; in fact, it began much as the Goldenglow job had, with her hesitation, wracked with guilt over her part in the ruin of an honest businessman. But hours of slinking through skeever-infested tunnels had changed her mind; as she had cut her way through corridors draped with silken webs, her nose filled with the stench of weeping decay, she'd found herself wishing horrible things upon both Maven and Sabjorn without even a shred of guilt.

It was these miserable thoughts that sustained her through the rest of the job, even after she'd cleaned the skeever blood from the edge of her blade for the dozenth time, even after she'd kicked over dead frostbite spiders to retrieve her arrows still dripping with viscous blue fluid, even after she'd come face-to-face with a raving madman intent on frying her to a blackened crisp with his magic for no reason other than she'd walked into his home uninvited and killed his plague-ridden vermin friends.

When it was all said and done, the madman dead, the skeevers deader, their nest poisoned to Oblivion, and the brewing vat appropriately handled, Madeline left the brewery, filthy and sore and beaming with pride, and went to find Sabjorn. She never wanted to see another bottle of mead for as long as she lived, but at least the job was done.

Or so she'd thought.

She'd taken too long, and cut it too close. Sinmir, captain of the guard under Vignar Grey-Mane, had already arrived, and by the looks of things, Sabjorn had been keeping him appeased with samples of his regular fare, because the hulking, ornery Norn in head-to-toe iron was already drunk. Madeline didn't know how Mallus had managed to stall the two of them while she finished in the tunnels, but he glared hatefully at her as he came into the reception room carrying a small wooden barrel under one arm. The scathing look would have boiled the Sea of Ghosts, but Madeline, skin still tingling from the madman's spells, could not manage to summon any sympathy for him. Sabjorn, impatient and flustered at the delay, refused to deal with her until the captain had left.

She was given no choice but to hang back. She tried to keep her face impassive, but her heart was trying to lodge itself in her throat. What if she'd put too much of the powder in the vat, and seriously hurt someone? Or worse, what if she'd added too little? Sinmir would go on his grumbling way, Sabjorn would remain proprietor of the meadery, and Madeline would be forced to return to Riften a failure once more.

She needn't have worried. Somehow, everything went according to Maven's plan. After one sip, Sinmir spit mead all over the floor, pompous little Sabjorn was carted off in chains, the meadery was left in the covetous hands of Mallus Maccius, and Madeline found herself standing in the reception room of what was soon to become another branch of the Black-Briar Meadery. She hoped, for the sake of all the mead connoisseurs out there, that Maven intended to steal Sabjorn's recipe, as well as his customers.

After the doors to the meadery had closed and the sounds of Sabjorn's protests had faded into the night, Mallus fell into a chair, grinning his sickly smile.

"I don't think that could have gone any better," he said, laughing. Never before had Madeline ever seen someone so joyful at the misery of another. When his little fit of glee had subsided, he wiped his mouth, and asked, "Is there anything else you need before you head back to Riften?"

"I need to take a look at Sabjorn's books," she said. "Maven wants the name of Sabjorn's private partner."

"Ah, the hunt begins," Mallus said. He went behind the bar, and after a moment of digging about, he produced a small iron key. He slid it across the counter. "You're welcome to take a look around Sabjorn's office. He keeps most of his papers in his desk. He was diligent with his books, I'll give him that much."

Madeline mumbled her thanks and hurried upstairs. Now that the job was finished, all she could think about was getting back to Riften – and to Brynjolf. The mess she'd made with him because of her selfish disregard could not be ignored. She owed him so much, and had never before acted so ungrateful. As difficult as it was to admit, she'd long since started to feel something more than loyalty where her red-headed thief was concerned. No matter how she wanted to deny it, her heart was in this now, and it would not be dissuaded so easily. Brynjolf had risked so much for her, and she'd given him nothing but uncertainty and grief in return. She wanted to make it up to him, and returning triumphant to Riften with Maven's favour in hand seemed a good start.

She let herself into Sabjorn's private quarters, and began the task of sifting through his belongings. With no worry of being caught, she was able to take her time. She pocketed a few trinkets of passing value to keep Tonilia off her back about coin, and slipped a beautiful gilded crystal decanter into her bag, thinking Delvin might like to take a look at it. She then went to the desk and started lifting out thick ledgers, but page after page of costs and inventory and shipment dates revealed nothing – until a loose page fell out of a book of account and fluttered to the floor.

Madeline picked it up. A familiar heaviness settled in her stomach as she read over its contents, but in the end, the words were not important. No matter how hard she searched, she knew she would not find the name of Sabjorn's private backer. The only thing she had to take back to Maven was the slip of paper she'd found by chance, the one with the strange bladed symbol at the top, the secret signature no one could decipher.

A chill came over her. She stuffed the note into the pouch on her belt, trying to shake the feeling of foreboding that swept over her like a cloud over the sun. She did not know what the symbol meant. She did not know what would happen. All she knew, down to her very bones, was that she had to get back to the guild. She had to get back to Brynjolf.


	13. The Loyalty of Thieves

"You feckless milk-drinkers! Are you cowards, or are you thieves?"

Brynjolf walked out of the training room to the sound of a fuss being made, and when he saw what was happening, he wasn't surprised. Whenever Vex graced the Cistern with her presence, it was always to make a fuss. At present, she was standing over a group of his boys who were sitting at one of the trestle tables. It seemed to be Thrynn, Rune, and Cynric, looking for all the world like they'd rather sink into the filthy floor than be the target of Vex's ire.

"Easy now, lass," Brynjolf said, walking over. "What's the trouble?"

Vex folded her arms over her chest. "Got a tip on a plum of a job. House is wide open, everything ripe for the taking. And not one of these cravens is man enough to take it because they're scared of ghosts."

"Ghosts?"

"The place is haunted, Bryn," Rune said, refusing to look up from the bottle of mead in his hands. "I'm not going anywhere near it."

"Nor me," Cynric added.

"It's not haunted, you spineless bastards!" Vex snapped, attracting eyes from every corner of the Cistern. For such a first-rate burglar, the girl certainly did love drawing attention to herself.

Thrynn had gone red in the face, so fed-up was he of Vex's constant badgering and insults. "Well, if the house isn't haunted, why don't you go sweep it yourself?" he shouted, banging a fist on the table.

"Me? When I've got drudges like you? What do we even pay you for?"

"You don't pay us!"

"Small wonder!"

Brynjolf stepped in then, nudging Vex away from the table before Thrynn lunged over it to throttle her.

"Enough, both of you," he said. "Vex, we don't bully our boys, you know that's not how this works. Although I might add that there are some around here who are behind on their share of the action." He looked pointedly at Thrynn. "Now, are we finished?"

Thrynn slumped back, and took up the tankard in front of him, putting it to his lips before he said something rash. The others at the table were too busy pretending to study the blade-scored tabletop to argue.

Satisfied, Brynjolf wrapped his hand around Vex's arm. "Can I speak with you in private, lass?"

Little Vex held her tongue long enough to be led back to the Flagon, but once he had her trapped in the corridor between the closed door and the storage cupboard, she let loose a flurry of curses that would have made even old Delvin blush. It wasn't until Brynjolf held up a hand to silence her tirade that she slumped back against the grimy stone wall, arms crossed sulkily over her chest. The heat from the wrathful glare she gave him would have blistered paint.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you'll catch more flies with honey?"

"Oh, piss off, Bryn," she grumbled. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're floundering down here. I've got Mercer breathing down my neck, and more jobs lined up than lackeys to do them. There's next to no gold coming in. No gold means no _guild,_ remember?"

"Aye, I remember," he said, an edge in his voice he could not banish. He ran a hand down his face, turning away for a moment so she would not see the anger he knew flared in his eyes. He could feel it boiling within him, the rise in his blood, heat in his very skin. "And you would do well to remember it's not up to you to force anyone into running your assignments." He flashed her a wolfish smile, sharp and foreboding. "Leave that to me from now on, eh?"

"This needs doing _now_ , Bryn. It's a limited window of opportunity."

"All right, lass, all right. Tell me about this job."

"It's an old manor house in Windhelm. Belongs to the high and mighty dragon herself. It's been sitting empty for weeks. Can you imagine the riches in there? And all of it just collecting dust!"

Brynjolf did his best to keep his face impassive, but it was damned difficult. Luckily, Vex was so blinded by her own greed to notice. "We don't chase after imaginary riches," he reminded her. "I'm not sending anyone into a house when you've got no idea what they're walking into. That's how we lose people."

"But just think of it, Bryn," she continued, not about to be deterred. "Think of what they'll say if we can pull it off. Stealing right out from underneath the nose of not only the Dragonborn, but Ulfric as well. We could open up new connections in Windhelm, not to mention impressing Maven, and–"

He held up a hand, not wanting to hear any more on the subject. "I'll think on it," he told her. She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but he stopped her with one look. "And I will send someone to you, should I make a decision. No more harassing the boys, eh?"

With an aggravated sigh, Vex agreed with the barest of nods, and left him alone in the corridor without even a single backward glance. As he watched her go, he realized he would have to find some way to appease her temper before she took it out on anyone else – or worse, decided this job was so important that she took off to do it herself. The way things were lately, he needed her here. They all needed to stay close.

Besides, he already had someone else in mind.

As he returned to the Cistern, thoughts on Vex's proposal clouded his thoughts. No doubt that the rumours swirling of the Dragonborn's disappearance had piqued her interest. Little did she know that her best source of information for the job was none other than the newest member of their ranks. He could have almost prided himself in that moment, how flawlessly he'd pulled off his plan to hide Maddie in plain sight. The mighty dragon gone to ground to play at being a rat.

If only things between them had gone a little more smoothly.

The girl's parting words had chased him around Cistern since she'd left for Whiterun days before, like an echo he couldn't escape. _"I know how this story ends,"_ she had told him, refusing to look at him. The way her eyes had skipped away when he tried to catch them had given away more truth than the words she had spoken. Too much. Too involved. He hadn't wanted to hear anymore, and he'd walked away.

He had never expected her to stay. The way she looked her nose down at their line of work, he'd known it wasn't meant to last. Especially after finding out who she really was, the secrets she kept, he'd known it was only a matter of time before something drastic pulled her away. It was the nature of the world. A woman of her stature was not meant for the shadows.

Even as she warmed to him, day by day, even as he'd allowed himself to open up to her in a way that he hadn't with anyone for so many years...

No. He'd never once dared allow himself to hope. The girl could not be tied down, and his place was with the guild. She would go where she would, and he could not stop her, nor would he ever think to try. All he could do was hold her while he had her, and let her go when the time came.

Losing Eirika had taught him that much, at least.

 

* * *

...

* * *

 

It was the next day that Maddie returned, rushing into the Cistern in a flurry of snow and dire warning, turning everything on its head once more. In fact, knocking the world upside down was something she was becoming quite proficient at. He hadn't expected her back so soon, and was ill-prepared to meet her when she cornered him in the training room.

"Bryn," she called from the tunnel, and he turned before she'd even come in. He knew her voice, would know it anywhere, soft and melodic, that hint of an accent that betrayed her Breton roots. When he didn't answer, she called his name again, rounding the corner as she did so.

He was ready for her with a well-practised smile. "Welcome back, lass. How was Whiterun? No random dragon attacks, I hope."

She gave him a wry smile. "For my sake, or the guild's?"

"What sort of question is that, now?"

The girl regarded him solemnly for a moment, as if trying to take a measure of his mood. Her brow furrowed, accentuating the soft lines there, yet more proof of the witchblood running through her veins. But even as he watched her, he could see none of the harshness of the Reach in her, and though Galathil's warning came back to him, he did not understand it. This contradiction of a girl, she who was both timid and fierce, would bring ruin and despair to his guild? Perish the thought. She didn't have a mean bone in her body.

She did, however, seem to have a knot in her tongue. She was chewing on the inside of her lip, a sure sign she had things to say and no words with which to say them.

"What's bothering you, lass?" he asked, as kindly as he could. He didn't have the heart to be cold to her. Whatever else, she looked thankful for his concern. Her eyes, before so downcast, brightened as she looked up at him.

"I need to talk to you about Whiterun," she said. "Something's happened."

Brynjolf chuckled. "Aye, I'm sure it has. Word on the street was that poor Sabjorn found himself in prison. How unfortunate for him."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Perhaps it would be, were he a more honourable man."

"I don't see a problem, then. Putting him behind bars by using his own mead against him? Seems rather like poetic justice to me."

"You're right, that's not the problem." She pulled a single sheet of paper from the satchel on her belt, and handed it to him. "I found this hidden in one of his ledgers when I was going through his books."

Brynjolf frowned as he opened the letter. His eyes skimmed the few sentences written there, but he knew even before reading that he would find nothing of promise. At the very top of the page, his eyes settled on the very thing that made his heart sink like a stone.

The indecipherable symbol, the dagger on its field of black.

"What did Maven have to say about this?"

"Nothing yet. I thought it best to come straight to you."

Brynjolf took a moment to sigh, dropping his head and pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He could feel a headache blooming like a stain behind his eyes. "That was a mistake, lass," he told her. "We need to go to Maven with this straight away."

"But Bryn –"

"It's all right," he said, and when he opened his eyes and looked down at her, he saw her sweet face full of doubt. He gave the paper back to her; she took it with a trembling hand. He resisted the urge to lean down and kiss the lines of worry from her forehead. Softness would not do either of them any good. "Maven needs to know that the job's been done and correctly this time. She probably already knows you're back."

"How?"

"The old hag's got more eyes and ears around this city than I do. It's nothing to fret over."

"But what about that symbol? She tasked me with finding Sabjorn's private partner."

"And you did," he assured her. "What you've uncovered is beyond coincidence, lass. First Aringoth, and now Sabjorn. Someone is trying to take us down by driving a wedge between Maven and the guild."

A look of concern darkened her face. In that moment, he could have loved her for it. To know she'd come out of this job with the guild's best interests at heart contradicted every doubt he'd had about her since she'd left for Whiterun. Yet even then, Brynjolf could not let his hopes for her colour his judgement. There was still work to be done, and her loyalty was yet untested. But there would be time enough for that later.

Brynjolf led the girl through the Cistern and up the ladder. She followed without complaint. But when they reached the Black-Briar manor, she paused, hanging back in the shadows as he gave the door two sharp raps with his knuckles. The door was opened within moments, giving him no time to encourage her. The hand he placed on the small of her back as he ushered her inside would have to do.

The interior of the manor house was dim, and smelled, as it always did, of intimidation and fear. There was a chill in the house that made Brynjolf feel as if he'd not left the winter outside where it belonged, and he shivered beneath his cloak.

"She's been expecting you," Maul grumbled by way of a greeting as he closed the door behind them. A feeling of foreboding enclosed them. Brynjolf was accustomed to such things, even if Maddie was not. Indeed, she stepped a little closed to him, her arm brushing his as she looked around the reception hall of Maven Black-Briar's manor. She glanced up at him with disquieted eyes.

Maul saw none of this; he'd already turned to lead them through the house. Brynjolf gestured before him, giving the girl a reassuring smile. "After you, lass."

The two thieves followed Maul into the depths of the manor, up the creaking stairs to Maven's bedroom, where the old harpy sat before the fire. There was a fur mantle draped over her shoulders, and a tankard in her hand. The picture she made reminded Brynjolf so starkly of the night of the Goldenglow job that he had to shake the vision from his head. That had been a different night, a different house, a different time. Now, it was Maddie by his side; she was better company than Mercer any day. She was trying to look brave and immovable and doing a decent job of it, with her shoulders squared and her chin held high. Only Brynjolf saw the cracks in the veneer, and even then only upon second glance.

"You're late," Maven said coldly, her eyes never leaving the fire.

Maddie did not falter. "It's a long walk to Whiterun, and the Jeralls are treacherous this time of year. I thought I made good time, considering," she replied, the very picture of courtesy. Brynjolf had to bite back a grin at her cheek she was giving the old woman.

Maven, however, was not appeased so readily. "I trust you have good news for me."

Brynjolf wished in that moment he could have warned the girl, but he didn't dare. If he'd heard news of Sabjorn's downfall, then as sure as sunrise, Maven had heard it, too. But Maddie seemed far calmer than she had before, and her voice was steady as she answered.

"The job is finished. I have the information you requested." She pulled the paper from her satchel as if for the first time, walking forward to hand it to Maven. Brynjolf lounged against the door frame, his arms folded casually over his chest; it was not his place to intrude. Not yet, anyway. He watched as Maven read over the letter, her lips pursing until her mouth was as thin as a knife slash and just as red.

"This tells me _nothing_ ," she hissed when she'd finished. "The only thing that could identify Sabjorn's private partner is this odd little symbol. I need a _name_ to destroy them, you stupid girl."

"We've seen that symbol before," Brynjolf said, cutting the girl off before she had a chance to argue. "It's no coincidence."

"Well, whomever this mysterious marking represents, they'll soon regret starting a war with me," Maven said, her every word dripping with malice. "I want them found, Brynjolf, do you hear me? I want it made your top priority. Can I trust you with that, or do I need to speak to Mercer myself?"

Brynjolf bristled at her insinuation. "Straight away, Madam Black-Briar," he said, but he was hard-pressed to keep the resentment out of his voice. Still standing by the fire, Maddie cast a glance at him over her shoulder, her eyes full of questions and worry. "Come along, lass," he told her, "we'd best get back."

"Wait," Maven said, holding up a hand. "There's still the matter of her payment."

"I'll meet you downstairs," Brynjolf said, trying to ignore the fact that the girl looked like she'd never forgive him for leaving her alone with Maven. It couldn't be helped. His every encounter with the matriarch always ended the same way – with him close to seething, and sorely wishing he didn't have to pay lip service to the old bitch who took his guild for granted. He had scars on his tongue from biting it for so many years.

Maddie met him downstairs a few minutes later, her cheeks flushed red. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but he only shook his head. It was neither the time nor the place. Maul was nowhere to be seen, so they let themselves out.

Once the door had shut behind them and they were out on the snowy street once more, Maddie sighed deeply. "Why do I always come away from that woman surprised she didn't eat me alive?"

"Because one day she just may, so you'd best keep your guard up."

They hurried along in silence, down the boardwalk and into the temple courtyard, but when they reached the stone alcove separating the courtyard from the cemetery, the girl reached out for him, her gloved hand wrapping around his elbow. He needn't have stopped, so pressing were the matters at hand, but he did anyway because that was how much she had come to affect him.

"What's the matter, lass?"

"I wanted to talk to you alone," she said. "Before we go back."

"A warm fire and a strong drink would suit me better. Can't this wait?"

"No, it can't, Bryn." She dropped her hand from his elbow then, quickly, as if just realizing it was still there. She slumped back against the wall of the alcove, her hood pulled down so far that her face was in shadow. "I wanted to apologize to you, for what I said before."

"You've nothing to apologize for," he replied, hoping for that to be the end of it. He did not want to be here, alone with her in the cold and the darkness, balancing on the brink of this unapproachable distance between them.

"I do need to apologize, and you need to listen," she said firmly. "It was ungrateful of me to say what I did. You've done everything I asked of you, you've helped me when no one else would, and that was no way to repay you."

He forced himself to smile. "Are we on the subject of payment then?"

"Brynjolf, I –"

"I told you, lass, there's no need for this. Just let it be." He turned to go, but she leapt forward and caught him by the elbow once more, and this time she did not let him go. They were close enough that he could have wrapped his arms around her if she wished, and by the Eight, did he want to, if only for the heat of her pressed against him in the cold of night.

"I can't let it be," she insisted, and he believed her. This little would-be thief of his was nothing if not stubborn.

"Aye, you can, at least for now," he said softly. "If you had any doubts about the guild, I suspect you wouldn't have come back from Whiterun." He took her hood in his hands and pushed it back, the better to see her face. "But it's not the guild you have doubts about, now is it?"

She raised her chin. "I was not raised to be a thief, Brynjolf."

"Perhaps not," he said, keeping his voice low. "But you're very good at thieving, now aren't you?"

Maddie was quiet for a long time, no argument at the ready for such logic. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of darkness and cold and silence, she gave him the smallest smile, bright even there in the shadows.

"I thought about running again," she admitted. "When I was in Whiterun. I could have gone anywhere. I could have gone back to Windhelm. Or to Cyrodiil. I could have gone _home_ , to Evermore."

"What stopped you?"

"It was that symbol," she said. "I don't know what it means, but I knew you had to see it."

"And now that we have?" he asked, pressing her. "Am I going to have another empty bed to fill?"

"No," she said quietly, "not an empty bed."

He cursed the shadows then because he could not read her eyes, could not see if that familiar flush has risen to stain her pale cheeks. But there was nothing to be done, and time was wasting. He was not about to take her into his arms, nor kiss her sweet mouth, when she'd as much told him that their involvement was frightening her. He was not the kind of man who pressed the advantage of vulnerability. She'd told him she had no intention of leaving; she'd shown her loyalty to the guild.

What could one more test hurt? If he was going be sure about her...

"We need to get back, lass," he said. "Mercer needs to see what you've uncovered, and Vex has a job for you."

"No, Brynjolf," she said wearily as she raised her hood to cover her hair. "I just came back from Whiterun. I'm exhausted."

"Take a day's rest, then. I'll tell Vex to expect you the day after tomorrow."

"Why me?" she asked, almost petulantly. "I'm beginning to think I'm the only one doing any work around here."

"I know the feeling," he said, and he gave her an indulgent smile. "And I've chosen you for this job because you're the best one for it, so cheer up." He felt far more confident than he had leaving Maven's manor. Almost as though things were back under his control.

In the weeks to come, it would shock and dismay him, just how little he'd known then. How his arrogance had blinded them. If only he'd known what was to come, he could have prepared, could have warned her. He could have saved her. He could have saved them both.


End file.
